French Open Scheduling

Maybe this is stating the obvious but in this day and age men’s tennis is more popular than women’s tennis.  This being the case why do they show the two main event tennis matches at the French, at the same time.  Surely anyone who wants to increase TV revenue would put the two quarterfinals Tsonga v Djokovic first, then Federer v Del Potro second on one court and stick the women on the other main court.   Now I suppose in the world of grand slam tennis the event itself is more important than TV, but TV now basically pays for these tournaments and it’s never been good practice to put the two best shows on simultaneously.

If anyone prefers to watch a woman’s quarterfinal match (god help them) over the men’s they can switch the channel.  I suppose the real the problem is not many would.  I would have liked to have seen both quarterfinals yesterday because I am a tennis fan and they were classic in places especially the Djokovic, Tsonga one, but I ended up flicking continuously between the two trying to watch both at the same time, it is ridiculous. 

I bet if the TV channels showing the French Open yesterday look at their figures they will show without a doubt very few watching to begin with, and then increasing when the men’s matches started.  I bet they also showed (if it is possible to show) fluctuations between the two matches as people flicked back and forth.

To show the interest in women’s tennis by most of the main newspapers all the headlines were about Fed and Djoks, and at the very end of most articles, the last couple of lines it said, oh and there were two women’s matches and such and such won.

I am really pleased Murrays match is not after Sreamanova’s this time, because watching bits of that dire 4^th round match was difficult to bare.  I kept flicking over wondering if it would ever end; it was like standing in the freezing cold on a New Year’s Eve, waiting in a taxi queue, knowing you are going to be standing there a long time, whilst freezing rain is pouring down and the wind is blowing.  At least there was a good women's match on at the same time, between Shvedova and Na Li.  Shvedova played fantastic and it was an enjoyable game to watch, pity more women's games were like that one.