The Roland-Garros quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic was scheduled for an evening session on Tuesday May 31, from 8:45 p.m., but will be “accessible free of charge to everyone in France”, announces the French Tennis Federation ( FFT) in a statement on Monday. Night session matches are normally shown only on Amazon’s paid platform, Prime Video. At the same time, France Télévisions – the historic broadcaster of Roland-Garros – holds the broadcasting rights for almost all the matches played during the day (with the exception of those at Simonne-Mathieu).
Exceptionally, the duel between Nadal and Djokovic can be followed “on Prime Video, mobile and Web applications” and viewers will be able to “watch this match on their usual television service” without “any registration or creation of an account”, specifies the FFT .
Asked the day before on the subject, Nadal had explained that he preferred “to play during the day”, when Djokovic leaned towards the evening. “I’m very aware that it’s a possibility, if things don’t go my way, that this will be my last game here at Roland Garros. That’s why I would like to play it during the day, “said the Mallorcan, thirteen times winner on Parisian clay.
Future opponent of world No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the other quarter-final at the top of the men’s table, the young Spanish phenomenon Carlos Alcaraz had estimated that playing again for the third time in the Paris fortnight in the evening would seem “unfair” to him. Her quarter-final was finally scheduled for the afternoon, after the first two women’s quarter-finals.
