Cannes Film Festival & Market Reaffirms One Persisting Trend
Amy Baker, CEO and co-founder of Winston Baker, speaks to the audience during the 15th International ... More Film Finance Forum in Cannes.
Cannes Film Festival represents the epitome of the film festival experience. It boasts old Hollywood glamour (and an even stricter dress code) from one of the most alluring red carpets in the world to larger-than-life premieres like Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning, one of the hottest tickets in this year's lineup,
But beyond the silver screen and behind the giant red carpet and gowns, there is a well-attended and robust market centered around the Palais just on the edge of the La Croisette. For nearly two decades, this central meeting hub has provided a space for industry professionals and festival goers alike to educate, discuss and pontificate over networking events, panels and more.
Amy Baker, CEO and co-founder of Winston Baker, has led the development of this programming with the company's annual International Film Finance Forum in Cannes in partnership with Marché du Film. Winston Baker is a globally recognized entertainment content curator, specializing in strategic solutions across entertainment finance, music, innovation, sports and various pockets of the industry. And as the 15th annual finance forum, this year's program did not disappoint. Set on the Festival Main Stage, Baker's company led candid conversations with thought leaders, established executives and talent to demystify and predict trends in the ever-changing film marketplace.
I had a chance to connect with Baker following the whirlwind market to get her sense of how this year compares in Cannes past. She noted a surprising amount of support for their artificial intelligence (AI) panel which focused on China. 'In years past, that was not as well attended but this year the crowd showed up with real interest.'
AI topics still appear to be a charged issue within the industry—especially after the strikes of 2023— as attendees often questioned the panel itself and yet inquired about AI uses. Baker says that while there is a 'strong interest in figuring out the use of AI,' it is still met with skepticism and concern (with enough hope to reinforce that AI in film is not going anywhere).
An image of panelists at the 15th Annual International Film Finance Forum in Cannes.
After 15 years of hosting this event series, Baker notes that the main change is that the industry 'newbies' now bring fresh materials and greater sophistication than in previous years, thanks to increased access to technology.
She is impressed with early creators' sizzle reels and sample artwork that look 'just as good as a studio.'
With newcomer trailers matching the level of those screening in the professional sales booth, how does the industry discern and pinpoint where the talent lies?
Baker was also excited about the Cannes audience's continued support for disruptors and advancement in her disruptors and advancement in her Shifter(s) Series with The Shift. For instance, Lars Knudsen and Ari Aster, Square Peg co-founders and filmmakers known for horror hits like Hereditary and Midsommar, received wide coverage from the press for their latest film screening at the fest Eddington. While the film industry is contracting, this is one example of how there are still seasoned professionals who continue to reinvent the business and draw in eyes.
But we were both amused to find that disruption can sometimes be overlooked or judged. Baker remembers back to 11 years ago when Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, took the stage at her event and proclaimed that streaming movies would take over distribution, and the audience's skepticism was blatantly apparent.
Baker has excelled in providing a forum where new ideas and observations are welcome, and the progressive Cannes Film Festival is especially supportive of her programming. When asked about the viability of Cannes for both seasoned industry vets and newcomers, Baker still believes that this is one of the preeminent festivals and markets as it is always on her radar.
Her advice to newcomers is that the human experience of attending these markets still rises above any AI algorithm and there is nothing like 'being there in person to run into people and just talk as you never know who you will meet.'
Those who prepare and do their Cannes homework can make the most out of this still relevant human experience where one can meet the past, present and future of filmmaking in one beautiful beach setting.
Next up for Baker is the inaugural International Film & Television Finance Forum during the Venice Film Festival in August and another forum at the Busan International Film Festival in September. With the American Film Market (AFM) back in Los Angeles this fall, she is also receptive to that being another great watering hole—not just for selling films, but for bringing the industry together through her company to collectively navigate the future of entertainment.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Ousmane Dembele, the ‘paranormal' PSG talent who knows all about the Bolsheviks
Control with the inside of the left foot, thump. Control with the inside of the right foot, thump. Control with the left thigh, this time, the ball arriving a bit higher. Touch to the right, thump. The ball smacking against the wall and springing back towards him through the puddles, the spray flying off it. The rain hammering down, his sodden tracksuit clinging to his skin. The noise of the ball hitting the wall echoing around the square. Over and over: right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. Control, thump. Control, touch, thump. Advertisement Ousmane Dembele is still a child, but he is already obsessed with football. If his friends are around, he plays with them: furiously contested kickabouts on the bare concrete of his neighbourhood, a pair of trees or a couple of backpacks for goals. If they are not, or if they are deterred by the weather, he comes here, to a playground a stone's throw from the high-rise apartment block he calls home, and wallops his football against the side of a squat red-brick building with a sloping terracotta-coloured roof. It is an easy, carefree pastime, but even at this young age, he knows that it will make him a better footballer; every touch and every shot strengthening his bond with the ball, sharpening his muscle memory. Control, thump. Control, touch, thump. The spindly youngster is at the beginning of a journey that will successively turn him into one of the most promising, one of the most unfortunate, one of the most maddening and ultimately one of the most celebrated football players in the world. At Rennes and then Borussia Dortmund, he is the very epitome of footballing potential: a whirlwind of sidesteps and breezy dribbles, a broad smile forever stretched across his face, a trail of befuddled opponents forever floundering in his wake. At Barcelona, after a record-breaking €135million transfer, things get complicated: injuries, recurrent complaints about his time-keeping and professionalism, the fear that his potential is destined never to be truly fulfilled. But the planets have aligned at Paris Saint-Germain, where his abrupt transformation into a prolific goalscorer means that he approaches Saturday's Champions League final against Inter in Munich accompanied by a higher level of expectation than perhaps any other player. Should PSG prevail, the Ballon d'Or could well be his. As he stands on the brink of career-defining glory, this is his story so far. By Moustapha Diatta's reckoning, he was five years old when he first met Dembele, who was one year older. The two boys' mothers were close friends and their families lived in the same building in La Madeleine, a disadvantaged district of the Normandy town of Evreux, which lies 60 miles west of Paris. Advertisement 'The days often revolved around football,' Diatta tells The Athletic. 'We'd have kickabouts with friends at the foot of our building or we'd challenge a team from another neighbourhood to a game. 'Ousmane always had a ball with him. And he had a gift. He could already shoot with both feet and his dribbling was instinctive. The results were pretty incredible.' A child of the 2000s, having been born in May 1997, Dembele grew up idolising players such as David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Lionel Messi. The dream of following in their gilded footsteps took root at an early age. 'When we were young, he told me several times that he was going to become a great player,' says Diatta. 'That's one of his character traits: when he wants something, he does everything to get it.' Dembele was seven years old when he and Diatta joined local club ALM Evreux (later to become Evreux FC), whose pitches lay a 10-minute walk away across the Boulevard du 14 Juillet. The first time Evreux youth coach Gregory Badoche laid eyes on him, he could scarcely believe them. 'He stood out a mile,' Badoche recalls. 'It was almost paranormal: the quality of his sidesteps, his dribbles, the crazy changes of rhythm. He was a little shrimp, you know, a very slender guy with legs like toothpicks, but his dribbling ability was insane.' Interest from major local clubs did not take long to arrive. Le Havre and Caen both made overtures, but Rennes won out after offering to help Dembele's family — his mother, Fatimata, his brother and his two sisters – to relocate to Brittany with him. Expectations, on both sides, were high. 'There was a recruiter from Rennes called Armand Djire who used to come and watch him regularly,' says Badoche. 'When Ousmane was still only 12, Armand said to me: 'If he doesn't become a professional, I'll end my career'.' As the former director of the Rennes academy, Yannick Menu has equally fond memories of 'Dembouz' the burgeoning footballer and Dembele the burgeoning person. 'Ousmane is someone who's very cheerful and very smiley,' he says. 'Sometimes our relationship was a bit stormy, because when you're in contact with a young person every day, that can happen. But he loved football and he loved training and he always gave everything on the pitch.' Advertisement Dembele made rapid progress in the Rennes youth ranks and was capped by France at both under-17 and under-18 level. But he was frustrated by what he felt was a lack of consideration from the club. Amid interest from Red Bull Salzburg, he downed tools in the summer of 2015, sitting out a two-week training camp in Germany, before eventually putting pen to paper on a three-year professional contract. After making his debut off the bench in a 2-0 win at Angers in October 2015, the 18-year-old became a fixture in the starting XI and finished his maiden campaign with an excellent return of 12 goals and five assists from 26 Ligue 1 games. 'He was very collective-minded,' says former Rennes head coach Philippe Montanier. 'He was a dribbler, but he always dribbled with intention. 'And he had personality as well. I remember the derby against Lorient (a 2-2 draw in January 2016). We went 2-0 down in the first half, but he was the one who was urging his team-mates to react.' Dembele's remarkable two-footedness left observers agog. A hat-trick of right-foot strikes in a 4-1 win over Nantes was followed by a notorious post-match interview in which even he seemed not to know which was his stronger foot. The unintentionally comical effect of that interview created an impression of a young player whose head was tethered to his shoulders with less than customary tightness. But those who know him insist that behind the impression of absent-mindedness lies a keen intelligence. 'Sometimes he'll seem a bit in his own world, then the next second he'll seem very switched on,' says a source close to Dembele, speaking anonymously to protect relationships. 'He's passionate about historical documentaries, for example. So in a conversation, you might think he's a bit lost, but then he'll suddenly start talking to you about the Bolsheviks. 'It's like when he's on the pitch — he's constantly throwing people off-balance.' Before his first season in senior football had reached its conclusion, Dembele had been announced as a Dortmund player, joining the club from the Ruhr valley on a five-year contract for a fee of €15million. Diatta, who played at centre-back, signed for Dortmund's reserves and the pair embarked on a German adventure together, first living in a hotel and then moving into a house in the city centre. Advertisement 'We had a pretty simple life there,' Diatta recalls. 'It was our first experience overseas, so we were discovering life abroad. We were lucky to find French players there like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who really took Ousmane under his wing.' The kind of football career that Dembele had pictured for himself in those kickabouts in La Madeleine was suddenly upon him: a gigantic stadium, packed to the rafters with 80,000 wildly cheering fans; glamorous Champions League ties against Real Madrid, Sporting CP, Benfica and Monaco; taut domestic tussles with Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig. Initially taken aback by the intensity of Dortmund's training sessions, Dembele soon got up to speed and credited head coach Thomas Tuchel with giving him the liberty to play his natural game. 'When I have the ball, it's total freedom,' he told L'Equipe. 'It's something that I need. I'm allowed to move into the middle, put myself in the number 10 position, change wings. It's gratifying to feel this confidence in me, as if I was 25.' Forming a devilish three-pronged attack alongside Aubameyang and Marco Reus, Dembele enjoyed a brilliant first season, playing a starring role in Dortmund's conquest of the DFB-Pokal and being named the Bundesliga's Rookie of the Season (one year on from having won the equivalent award in France). But the youngster's impatience came to the fore once more the following summer when he went on strike again, leaving a bad taste at Dortmund that lingers to this day. This time it was to force through a move to the club of his dreams. Before joining Barcelona, Dembele had never sustained a serious injury. Within two weeks of being unveiled at a sun-soaked Camp Nou in August 2017, he ruptured the tendon in the femoral bicep of his left thigh, which sidelined him for nearly four months. It created an unfortunate template for what was to follow. Advertisement In Dembele's early years at Barca, his body continually betrayed him. Further problems with his left hamstring came in January 2018 and March 2019. A muscle tear in his right thigh in May 2019. A muscle tear in his left thigh the following August. A complete right hamstring tear in February 2020. A knee tendon issue in June 2021 that forced him out of Euro 2020. By the time he left Barcelona in the summer of 2023, after six seasons at the club, he had missed no fewer than 119 matches due to injury. It did not help that, even when he was fit, he did not always seem entirely present, with repeated instances of lateness driving the club's decision-makers to distraction. Dembele was living with Diatta and his uncle in a luxurious house in Barcelona's upmarket Pedralbes neighbourhood and the fear within the club was that he was spending too much time playing video games and not enough time focused on football. 'In his early days, he didn't have the professional mindset of a Barca player,' says a source who worked with Dembele during his time at the club. 'His eating habits were horrible. He also had a phase when he'd show up very late for training. He was fined for that multiple times. Sometimes he'd fall asleep at home and that was it. He even missed medical appointments.' Diatta puts Dembele's teething problems at Barca down to inexperience. 'When you buy a player at such a young age and there are lots of expectations around him, you should be able to forgive him a few little mistakes,' he says. Eventually, the penny dropped. Encouraged by his agent, Moussa Sissoko, Dembele took on a full-time personal chef, Anthony Audebaud, in the summer of 2019. Out went the Coca-Cola and the ready meals, in came the sea bream, the sea bass, the spring chicken and the vegetables. A year later he started working with a personal fitness coach, former elite sprinter Salah Ghaidi, and physiotherapist Jean-Baptiste Duault, who was taken on after impressing Dembele's entourage with his analysis of the player's injury problems in an interview with L'Equipe. Advertisement The feeling in Dembele's camp was that Barcelona's focus on patient, possession-dependent football meant that their training sessions were not sufficiently dynamic for him from a physical perspective. Backed by his new personal support staff, Dembele took physical preparation and injury prevention into his own hands, constructing a daily fitness schedule designed to strengthen and protect the muscles that had previously been his undoing. With his injury problems finally behind him, Dembele's last three seasons at Barcelona were much happier as he became a key figure under first Ronald Koeman and then Xavi. Although his attacking statistics remained largely underwhelming, he bowed out as a Barca player with three La Liga titles and two Copa del Rey wins to his name. 'He eventually became a sort of veteran in the dressing room and his team-mates understood him better in his last years,' says the Barcelona source. 'Dembele ended up being loved for how he was.' The turnaround in Dembele's Barca fortunes also permitted him to resurrect his international career. He played only a peripheral role in France's triumph at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, having lost his place after their opening game, and then went 860 days without playing for Les Bleus between November 2018 and March 2021. But although injury curtailed his involvement at Euro 2020, he was a first-choice pick on the right flank at both the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2024. Close to Kylian Mbappe, Dembele is popular in the France squad due to his irrepressible bonhomie and has long retained national coach Didier Deschamps' backing, in spite of his many injury problems, thanks to his unique ability to unlock matches. 'Some players understand things very quickly and are already mature at the age of 19 or 20, like Kylian,' says Ludovic Batelli, who coached both Dembele and Mbappe at under-19 level with France. 'I think Ousmane needed a bit more time to understand that work, rigour and discipline would make him even more effective and successful. But as they say — better late than never.' Having agreed to meet a €50million (£42.9m, $54.9m) release clause in Dembele's Barcelona contract, the PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi sold his club's project to the forward by vowing that he would be the homegrown figurehead of a young, hungry team with a strong French identity. Paris had been a 70-minute train ride from Evreux during Dembele's childhood and he had happy memories of going to watch games with his friends at the Parc des Princes. Advertisement It helped, too, that Dembele already knew PSG's newly appointed coach. While coach of Barcelona, Luis Enrique had enquired about the winger's availability following his breakthrough at Rennes, only for Dembele to inform him that he had already given his word to Dortmund. Seven years on, their paths finally converged. 'Luis Enrique was fiercely protective of him, right from day one,' says a source close to the PSG coach. 'He was confident that he had something magical in his hands and that under him, Dembele was going to flourish.' After claiming a league and Coupe de France double alongside Mbappe in his maiden PSG season, Dembele was one of the players expected to step up to the plate when his long-time friend left the French capital for Real Madrid last summer. Things did not get off to the best start when he was dropped on disciplinary grounds for PSG's 2-0 defeat at Arsenal in the Champions League in October. Dembele had questioned Luis Enrique's possession-heavy tactics during a team briefing and subsequently reported late for a training session, although a source close to him suggests that he was primarily axed for the trip to the Emirates Stadium in order to send a message to the rest of the squad. Yet only two months later, Luis Enrique happened upon a tactical innovation that would reinvigorate PSG's season — and transform Dembele's career. The decision to deploy Dembele as a false nine for a 3-1 home win over Lyon in mid-December proved the spark for a stupendous run of goal-scoring form in which the France international racked up 27 goals in only 22 appearances. Amassed in the space of only three and a half months, it represented twice as many goals as he had ever previously mustered over the course of an entire season. Dembele, who has scored 33 goals in all competitions, attributes his improved fortunes to the fact that his central role means he has to expend less effort in order to get into shooting positions, enabling him to take aim at goal with fresher legs. Sources close to him additionally point to the hours of work he has spent on his finishing in training over the last 12 months, as well as input from a personal video analyst. Advertisement As the deliberately elusive focal point of a deliberately loose-limbed starting XI, the super-fit Dembele also plays a pivotal role in PSG's build-up play and their formidable pressing game. Having turned 28 earlier this month, Dembele is one of the senior figures in the PSG squad. Although grand speeches have never been his style ('a connector rather than a leader' is how one source describes him), he fulfils an important function in the club's youthful, multilingual changing room. 'He speaks several languages, which facilitates links with his team-mates,' says a source close to the PSG squad. 'He's also someone who's very jovial, who likes taking the mick, and that helps to create a good atmosphere and bind the squad together.' Dembele's performances have also benefited from the fact that, away from the pitch, he has moved into a more settled phase in his life. He married Moroccan influencer Rima Edbouche in December 2021 and they had a baby daughter in September 2022. A practicing Muslim, PSG's No 10 is scrupulously discrete about his private life and describes himself as 'casanier', meaning 'a homebody'. Though fatherhood and the demands of elite-level football have inevitably reduced the amount of free time on his hands, he remains a committed Football Manager player and watches as much live football as he can. 'I watch practically every championship,' he confided to Le Parisien last year. Few would have bet on him emerging from the current campaign with a stronger claim to the Ballon d'Or than Mbappe. But according to those who know him, until he has the Champions League trophy in his hands, thoughts of individual glory can wait. 'For him, the most important thing is to win the Champions League with Paris Saint-Germain, because it would be something historic,' says best friend Diatta. Advertisement 'And it'd be deserved, when you look at his journey. He's been through tough times, people have spoken ill of him, about the injuries and things like that, but he's never complained. He's just kept working.' One more assured first touch, one more thumping finish, and a little boy's dreams will all come true. Additional reporting: Pol Ballus (Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Franc Fife / Getty, Aurelien Meunier/ Getty Images, Franco Arland/ Getty)
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
The Future Of AI Is Specialization
With 16+ years in cybersecurity, Édouard Viot, CTO of Symbiotic Security, is a hacker at heart and an innovator in AppSec, WAFs and EDR. The rapid evolution of AI has led to an important realization: the infrastructure, training costs and ongoing reinforcement learning required to maintain a generalist AI model are astronomical, impractical and unsustainable. In my opinion, the future belongs instead to hyperspecialized AI models that are tailored to excel in hyper-specific domains. Fundamentally, using a large language model (LLM) for a hyper-specialized task is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut: it's not the most efficient tool for the job. So instead of relying on large, resource-intensive models for every task, the industry is shifting toward domain-specific AI agents. For example, AI specializing in code security would outperform a general-purpose model like ChatGPT when it comes to detecting and remediating vulnerabilities. In fact, we ran an internal study on this topic that you can find here. Agentic AI substantially increases these capabilities. Agentic AI is a solution engineered to function independently by making decisions, executing actions and adjusting dynamically to evolving conditions with minimal human oversight. Take, for example, an agent specialized not just in code security, but specific families of vulnerabilities, such as XSS, SQL injection and buffer overflow. In these cases, AI can adapt to the type of vulnerability it has detected and route the user to proper, hyper-focused resources for remediation and/or training. The agentic approach can also be used to chain AI models. Using a slightly different example, let's say the user is working with Terraform code. Within the workspace, one agentic AI can be used to remediate vulnerabilities in the code in Terraform and then route to another agent that will check the syntax to make sure that everything is correct. This will provide better results, but will also lead to increased latency. All of this raises a fundamental question: Do we really need general-purpose AI models that know everything? The answer is increasingly clear—no, we don't. What we need is AI that is exceptional at a specific task, delivering high performance with lower compute costs. The advantages extend beyond efficiency: hyperspecialized AI reduces latency, improves accuracy and even lowers environmental impact due to reduced resource consumption. Hyperspecialized models can have an outsized impact in areas that call for both accuracy and flexibility. Looking again at cybersecurity, different AI techniques can work together to make the whole process faster and more efficient. For instance, machine learning models, trained on large datasets of known threats and safe software, are great at classification. They can quickly spot anomalies, categorize vulnerabilities and reduce false alarms during automated scans. This is a huge win for security teams, who can then focus on higher-level strategy and incident response rather than sifting through endless alerts. Meanwhile, LLMs shine when it comes to code-related tasks, in that they can generate specific fixes across a range of programming languages. This means developers don't have to be experts in every single language; they can rely on an LLM to create targeted solutions that fit the situation at hand. Bringing these two approaches together—machine learning for classification and LLMs for code generation—creates an effective combination that addresses both identification and remediation of security issues. Not only does this save time and resources, but it also bolsters an organization's overall security posture by delivering quick, precise results. The productivity gains from AI-driven automation are undeniable. In software development, AI can function like an outsourced team, accelerating coding efforts and reducing development timelines. However, this speed comes with a trade-off: without proper oversight, AI-generated code can, and does, introduce security vulnerabilities, leading to increased risk. In fact, a recent Stanford study has shown, among other things, that participants "who had access to an AI assistant wrote significantly less secure code than those without access to an assistant." It also found that participants with access to an AI assistant were also more likely to believe they wrote secure code, suggesting that such tools may lead users to be overconfident about security flaws in their code. Rather than replacing developers, AI is transforming their role. Developers will shift from being pure coders to acting as AI controllers and overseers, ensuring that AI-generated output meets security and quality standards. This evolution places a greater emphasis on critical thinking and judgment, elevating the role of developers within organizations. As AI models become more widely available, the competitive edge will shift towards data quality and specialization. Large, general-purpose models require immense investment, but hyperspecialization allows smaller players to compete effectively. This disrupts the traditional AI hierarchy, potentially enabling new innovators to challenge the dominance of tech giants. AI is increasingly learning from human interactions, a concept known as reinforcement learning. Using the case of code security again, if a developer modifies AI-suggested remediation code before accepting it, the AI can learn from this adjustment and refine its future recommendations. This continuous feedback loop allows AI to evolve based on real-world usage, improving accuracy and effectiveness over time. It's important to note, however, that for an AI to be truly self-improving, the capabilities of the human interacting with it need to be taken into consideration. In fact, only with that awareness should the reinforcement learning be adjusted. If the developer modifying the suggested remediation code makes those changes without understanding the root problem, and as a result, the changes are ill-advised or wrong, learning from that interaction would be detrimental to the AI. As AI advances, hyperspecialization will become the dominant strategy for enterprises seeking cost-effective, high-performance solutions. The era of trying to build a single AI that does everything is giving way to a more practical approach: deploying multiple smaller, task-specific AIs that are more efficient, precise and ultimately more beneficial for organizations and society. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
French Open night session snub not about quality of women's tennis, says Amélie Mauresmo
Amélie Mauresmo, the former world No. 1 who is the tournament director for the French Open, has rejected suggestions that the lack of women's matches in the Roland Garros night session tells WTA Tour players that they are not worthy of the event's primetime slot. In a confrontational news conference, Mauresmo insisted that scheduling four women's matches out of 44 on Court Philippe-Chatrier since 2021 was not a judgment about the value and quality of women's tennis. Advertisement 'It has never been that the girls are not worthy to play at night,' Mauresmo said. 'It's never been this, and I will not accept that you carry this message.' Mauresmo said that the French territory television contract with Amazon Prime stipulates there being only one match in the night session. She then repeated another message of the past few years: that the potential length of the match is what matters. A three-set match could be over in two; a five-set match guarantees at least three. 'It's the length of the matches, not the level they reach,' Mauresmo said. Earlier in the week, French Tennis Federation (FFT) president Gilles Moretton said that scheduling decisions are based on 'what is better for spectators.' Mauresmo said no female player has raised the issue directly with her, but her comments followed Coco Gauff, the world No. 2, and Ons Jabeur, the three-time Grand Slam finalist, discussing the importance of giving women the chance to showcase their talents in front of the widest possible audience. 'It's still sad that we are still seeing this,' Jabeur said in a news conference. 'I keep standing by my words. In Europe, in general, it's unfortunate for women's sports. Not for tennis but for in general. I hope whoever is making the decision, I don't think they have daughters, because I don't think they want to treat their daughters like this.' 'I do think that women's matches are worthy of a night spot,' said Gauff, who often plays at night at the U.S. Open in front of some 24,000 people at Arthur Ashe Stadium. She said French Open organizers could solve the problem by starting earlier and having two matches at night rather than one, as both the U.S. and Australian Opens do, as well as other top mixed tournaments. 'From my experience playing at US Open, night match at 7 p.m. with Novak (Djokovic) following me, and he's the greatest player of all time, people were almost just as excited to see me play as him,' Gauff said. Jabeur also noted the circularity and the self-fulfilling outcome of having limited women's matches in the best slots. Advertisement 'They don't show women's sport, they don't show women's tennis. Of course they watch men more because you show men more. Everything goes together. It's a shame from the Federation, a shame from the Prime,' she said. She noted how Naomi Osaka and Paula Badosa had played an epic three-set match that lasted nearly two and half hours in the first round, a duel between two high-profile players that could have carried a night session. Osaka played a similar match in the second round last year against Iga Świątek. Both matches took place in the day session, but Osaka's encounter with the four-time champion went on so long that it was getting dark when they were done. 'A lot of great matches, they should have been there,' Jabeur said. Mauresmo told reporters to 'ask her on Sunday' about the topic, and a French reporter suggested putting the all-French encounter between wild cards Lois Boisson and Elsa Jacquemot in the slot Saturday, during the Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter. She said that the night sessions are sold out to Chatrier's capacity of 15,000, with the seats filled from early in the first set. She suggested that would not be the case if the session started earlier with a women's match, partly because of French work schedules. That is rarely an issue in Melbourne and New York, with spectators who have paid serious money for prime tickets not wanting to miss out. Ken Solomon, the former chief executive of the Tennis Channel, which used to be the U.S. broadcaster of the tournament, said he had raised the issue during his tenure. In part, that was to see if high-profile Americans like Gauff might play at night because it is the afternoon in the U.S., even if that meant scheduling two women's matches for the night session. Solomon said that there was no interest in doing that from either the WTA Tour or the tournament. Advertisement Like every other broadcaster, TNT, the current U.S. broadcaster makes suggestions and expresses preferences but ultimately the French Tennis Federation (FFT) makes the final call. The last time women played at night on Philippe-Chatrier was in 2023, when current world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka played Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals. Asked whether she personally had an issue with the decision to schedule exclusively men at night since then, Mauresmo declined to answer. 'I would like to change the subject,' she said. (Top photo of Amélie Mauresmo: Antonio Borga / Eurasia Sport Images via Getty Images)
