French Open: Amelie Mauresmo apologises for calling women’s tennis 'less appealing'

French Open director Amelie Mauresmo has been forced to apologise after calling women’s tennis ‘less appealing’ than men’s.

Mauresmo, a two-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one, had waded into a debate about the scheduling at Roland-Garros. 

Only one of this year’s 10 night sessions has featured a women’s match – Alize Cornet’s second round victory against Jelena Ostapenko.

Mauresmo claimed it was “more difficult” to put women’s matches on late as there was ‘less appeal’.

“In this era we are in right now – and as a woman, a former woman’s player, I don’t feel bad or unfair saying this – you have more attraction and appeal, in general, for the men’s matches,” she said.

Her words attracted criticism from world number one Iga Świątek, who described the comment as “disappointing and surprising”. 

Mauresmo has now apologised, claiming she was quoted “out of context”.

“I want to say sorry to the players that really felt bad about what I said,” she said. “The comments I made were taken out of context.

“The people who know me, who’ve known me on and off the court, throughout my career, throughout everything that I’ve done, know I’m a big fighter for equal rights and women’s tennis, women in general.”

The 42-year-old also suggested she would look to adjust the scheduling next year.

“I didn’t decide to have this one match,” Mauresmo said. “Next year to be more fair to the women’s players it would be good to maybe have the possibility to put two matches or maybe a women’s match plus a doubles match.

“Concerning the scheduling, specifically for the night matches, my say was that because we have one match only, it’s really tougher to schedule a woman’s match because we have to take into consideration the length. It’s