Of the ten “night sessions” currently organized for this 2022 edition of Roland-Garros, only one match was dedicated to women’s tennis. If Alizé Cornet and Jelena Ostapenko had the nocturnal honors of Philippe-Chatrier, no other player could be put forward by the broadcasters and the organization. If the top names of the ATP, like Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, logically attract attention, the younger generation, like Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune, also passes in front of the players.
It is to wonder even if, after the end of the course of the French, the women’s tournament of Roland-Garros is still in progress, so much we hear little about it. And it’s not just the TVs that are shying away from the players: in the early rounds, you hardly ever saw Chatrier or Lenglen full when they hit the court. After the thinnings Jeanjean and Parry on the side of tricolor tennis, anonymity has unfortunately returned.
Amélie Mauresmo, the new tournament director, is playing a perilous balancing act regarding the scheduling of matches. If she wants to promote more and more women’s matches, she comes up against a sad reality: the televisions demand above all the Nadals
How to explain this increasingly pronounced incognito aspect? The current women’s circuit can however count on the emergence of a great champion like Iga Swiatek. The one who has just turned 21 had revealed herself in 2020 by winning Roland-Garros. Undisputed world number one this year, she does not yet have the dimension of her brilliant predecessors, such as Serena Williams, the regularity of Justine Henin, or even the aura of Maria Sharapova. If Swiatek still has time to reach an equivalent status, the Polish illustrates in spite of herself a WTA which seeks a second wind at the level of its charismatic figures. Unless you are a connoisseur, no one can name the top 5 of the women’s circuit today.
Difficult to ensure its place in the elite of women’s tennis. Prodigy Naomi Osaka struggled to confirm her outbreak due to hard-to-digest pressure. Ons Jabeur, sensation from the beginning of the year, did not manage to pass the first round on the side of the Porte d’Auteuil, proof that the chronic instability of women’s tennis is still there. Ashleigh Barty, who won the last Australian Open, announced that she was retiring from sport aged just 25 last March. We are almost hoping for the return of Serena Williams to rekindle the flame. Disappeared from the courts for more than a year, the American maintains the mystery about her comeback, she who still dreams of equaling 40-year-old Margaret Smith Court in the number of grand slam titles won.
