PARIS (AP) — The French Open isn’t the only sports event in Europe drawing attention from tennis players: The Champions League final will decide the continent’s best soccer club, and one of the two teams involved Saturday night is Paris Saint-Germain, whose stadium is a couple of blocks from Roland-Garros.
Count Novak Djokovic among those rooting for PSG against Italy’s Inter Milan, and he hoped to be able to tune in on TV to watch the big clash that’ll be held in Munich, Germany. So Djokovic made that preference known to the people in charge of arranging the program at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament he’s won three times — a common practice, especially among the sport’s elite.
They often ask to be scheduled at a certain time. Or to avoid a certain time.
“I will definitely watch it if I’m not playing (in the) night session. Yeah, that will be nice,” Djokovic said with a big smile. “FYI, Roland-Garros schedule.”
Hint, hint. Except his plea went unheeded: When Saturday’s order of play was released Friday, 24-time major champion Djokovic’s third-round match against Filip Misolic was the one picked for under the lights at Court Philippe-Chatrier due to begin at 8:15 p.m. local time, 45 minutes before Inter Milan vs. PSG starts.
Others who begged off from competing at that hour got their wish. Although one, Arthur Fils, the 14th-seeded Frenchman who grew up near Paris and is a big PSG fan, wound up pulling out of the tournament because of a stress fracture in his back after being placed in an afternoon match against No. 17 Andrey Rublev.
“We have many requests from players” every day, tournament director Amélie Mauresmo said. “There’s no fixed rule. We try to accommodate everyone as much as possible. That includes requests from players, broadcasters and spectators. … It’s a real puzzle, I won’t lie.”
Coco Gauff said she doesn’t often ask for a certain time slot, but when she does, it’s usually related to competing in singles and doubles on the same day (the American won the French Open doubles title last year but isn’t playing doubles this time).
The 2023 U.S. Open champion, who is currently No. 2 in singles, has noticed that events tend to listen more to elite players than others.
“If you’re ranked a little bit higher, they’ll hear more of your input, for sure,” Gauff said. “To be honest, I think it’s rightfully deserved. I feel like if you do well on tour, win so many tournaments, you should have a little bit more priority when it comes to that.”
Except even the very best of the best don’t always have success with these sorts of things.
Madison Keys, who was the U.S. Open runner-up in 2017 and won the Australian Open in January, knows what it’s like to be ignored.
“Sometimes the request goes (in), they write it down, and they say, ‘OK,’” but then don’t do anything about it, Keys said.
“I really think that it’s just kind of up to what the tournament wants, what TV wants, things like that,” she added. “Sometimes you kind of get what you ask for. And other times, you get the complete opposite.”
Just ask Djokovic.
“Whatever they schedule me, I have to accept,” he said earlier this season. “I think I earned my right to … (communicate) with the tournament management, where I can express what I would like, depending on a given day, depending on the opponent.”
___
Associated Press writer Tom Nouvian contributed to this report.
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
