Best-of-five for women? That could be very interesting – Mauresmo

The tournament director spoke to the press and made some interesting observations about the women’s game

Amelie Mauresmo at the 2023 women’s final (Chryslene Caillaud/Panoramic)

June 11, 2023

Tournament director Amélie Mauresmo spoke to the media on the final day of Roland-Garros – and hinted that she would theoretically be in favour of women playing best-of-five sets on certain occasions.

After agreeing with reporters that the final between Iga Swiatek and Karolina Muchova had been top-class, she was asked whether in the future the trophy match could extend to five sets.

“As far as rules are concerned, maybe we could – I’d have to check this point,” she replied.

“You know, when I was playing myself, I always thought it could be something interesting to explore. I was very disappointed with the Masters final that was for the best-of-three sets.

“It is something that’s complicated. Well, you see, that’s what we want when the finals are played very quickly, but then yesterday, after two hours and 40 minutes, I think, well, it was fantastic, you’re saying. When it’s this way, why should we do more? Last year, I can’t remember the length of the match, probably nearing an hour, more or less.

Mauresmo: Some high-profile players aren’t keen to play at night

She was also asked about the lack of women’s matches in the Court Philippe-Chatrier night session – one of a possible ten – particularly in light of Jessica Pegula writing in her BBC Sport column that it felt like the women’s game was “undervalued”.

Mauresmo took the line that on the show courts overall there was more equal scheduling, even if not in the evening.

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“Apart from the night sessions…the prime slots were this time rebalancing also on what happened last year much more balanced between men and women, so that is something for us that is important definitely.

“I hear that she’s disappointed with that. I just also want to say that some of the high-profile players, that are women’s players I’m talking about, that would be our choices to put in the night matches are not really keen to go at night and are having different requests. We’re not always listening to the requests, that’s not what I’m saying, but we also try to arrange overall, whether they’re men or woman player, we try to arrange everyone if we can.”

Iga Swiatek had said earlier in the fortnight that she preferred to play during the day time – and Mauresmo added that it wasn’t just the women who asked to be scheduled earlier.

“It comes from everyone. Yeah, sometimes we can go in the sense of the requests; sometimes we can’t.”