Rafael Nadal would have preferred to “play during the day” when “Nole” leaned towards the evening. Finally, the FFT decided for a night on Tuesday evening on the Amazon streaming platform, which should bring together hundreds of thousands of viewers.
With one stone, two (big) blows. Prime Video won the sensational Roland-Garros quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, finally scheduled for an evening session on Tuesday, starting at 8:45 p.m. But, drumbeats and well-ordered publicity, the broadcast will be “accessible free of charge to everyone in France”, announces the French Tennis Federation (FFT). Rafael Nadal explained that he preferred “daytime play” when “Nole” leaned towards the evening.
The matches of the night session are normally broadcast only on Amazon’s paid platform, Prime Video, when France Télévisions, the historic broadcaster of Roland-Garros, holds the broadcasting rights for the matches played during the day (with the exception of those of the Simonne-Mathieu).
Exceptionally, the duel between Nadal and Djokovic can be followed “on Prime Video apps, mobile and web” and viewers can “watch this match on their usual television service” sans “no registration or creation of an account“, specifies the FFT.
Inheriting there the hottest file of her beginning of the magisterium, Amélie Mauresmo, the director of the Porte d’Auteuil tournament, had canceled Sunday evening a passage on France Télévisions, announcing a press conference on the subject for Monday morning. Finally, the announcement was made by way of a simple press release.
“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.”declared Nadal, thirteen times winner on Parisian clay.
Future opponent of world number 3, the German 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 to him “unfair”. Her quarter-final was finally scheduled for the afternoon, after the first two women’s quarter-finals.