June 3 (Reuters) – French Open director Amélie Mauresmo has apologized for saying women’s tennis is not as attractive as men’s, adding that her comments were taken out of context.
The statements came at a time when the match schedule was questioned. A night match has been included in the clay-court Grand Slam program each day at 21:00 local time (1900GMT) from the first Monday until the quarter-finals.
However, nine of the 10 matches scheduled as a night session have been men’s matches, leading to questions that women have been disadvantaged in major tournaments.
In response to questions about the schedule, Mauresmo said the men’s matches have more “appeal.”
“First of all, the comments I made were taken out of the bigger picture, out of context,” former Grand Slam champion Mauresmo told Tennis Channel on Thursday.
“And I want to apologize to the players who felt really bad about what I said.”
“Again, I think that the people who know me, who have known me on and off the track, throughout my career, throughout everything I’ve done, know that I am a great fighter for equality. rights and women’s tennis, women in general”.
Mauresmo said it was difficult to put only players on the schedule for spectators with a single ticket for the night, adding that the tournament would look into adjusting the format next year.
“Regarding the scheduling, specifically for the night games, my opinion was that having only one game, it’s really more difficult to schedule a women’s game because we have to take the duration into account,” Mauresmo said.
“It’s the fairest thing for the viewers.”
“Next year, to be fairer to the players, it would be nice to have the possibility to put on two matches or maybe a women’s match plus a doubles match.”
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam; Translation by Flora Gomez)
