THREE-TIME reigning champion Iga Swiatek said women’s matches can provide just as much entertainment as the men’s as she weighed in Friday on the uneven scheduling of French Open night sessions.
Tournament director Amelie Mauresmo has rejected accusations that the decision to only put men’s matches in the primetime slot implies that women are “not worthy” of it.
Swiatek has been reluctant to get drawn into a continuing debate but said after her third-round win over Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian that women’s matches should be treated evenly.
“I think it should be equal. Like personally it’s not like, you know, I have big feelings about it because I just do my job. I adjust to the schedule that I’m given,“ she said.
“But, yeah, I think it should be equal, because the women’s matches can be an entertainment the same way.
“As you could see today on my match, they were giving waves and everything. So people like it. We can put on a nice show. That’s why I think it should be equal.”
Four-time Roland Garros champion Swiatek battled past the 60th-ranked Cristian 6-2, 7-5 to reach the fourth round and improve her win-loss record at the tournament to 38-2.
Swiatek broke Cristian twice in a comfortable first set, but she was pushed a lot harder by her rival in the second and had to save six break points.
The 23-year-old Pole increased her winning run at the French Open to 24 matches as she looks to become the first woman to win four successive titles in Paris in over a century.
Swiatek will play 12th seed Elena Rybakina for a place in the quarter-finals after the Kazakh dispatched 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-2 in a clash of big hitters.
She has a 4-4 record against Rybakina but has lost both previous meetings on clay. Swiatek though could scarcely hide her relief at avoiding Ostapenko, who is 6-0 against her.
A grinning Swiatek suggested earlier she had no preference as to her last-16 opponent before asking: “Am I a good liar?”
“Let’s say it doesn’t matter, really. Oh, my God. I couldn’t play poker,“ she joked.
