During the traditional press conference at the end of the tournament, the director of Roland-Garros Amélie Mauresmo and the president of the FFT Gilles Moretton notably returned to the question of empty seats which agitated the end of the fortnight.
:quality(50)/2023/06/21/6492bae49ac64_maylicerond.png)
Published
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/06/09/000-34q688y-1-66658de761486956614623.jpg)
Images that we “can’t accept”. A few hours before the start of the men’s final, Sunday June 9, the director of Roland-Garros, Amélie Mauresmo, and the president of the French Tennis Federation, Gilles Moretton, took stock of this 2024 edition facing the media.
The half-empty stands at the start of the semi-final between Alexander Zverev and Casper Ruud were one of the big talking points of this press conference. “I’m already starting to have more advanced ideas to avoid this, but once again there are constraints” assured Amélie Mauresmo. JI’m not going to give you a miracle solution today, we need to discuss it, we need to debate it.” “We cannot accept seeing empty stands like that in a second semi-final”added alongside him the president of the French Tennis Federation Gilles Moretton.
The absence of women’s draw matches scheduled in night sessions this year was also one of the themes discussed: “I have always said it, we are a unique match, obviously we have constraints in relation to playing time. There are the posters that we look at to see which ones could be in the evening session, and there is time to game that we want to try to guarantee for the evening public”explained Amélie Mauresmo, who nevertheless assured that “rNothing is ever set in stone.”.
The tournament director also ruled out the hypothesis of a two-match evening session, like at the Australian Open for example, which could guarantee balance. “We asked ourselves the question of going to two matches. Parisian culture is not about arriving at 7 p.m. in the stands and we would end up with other problems”she justified.
