For the first time since June 2023, a women’s match takes the Roland-Garros night session – and Sabalenka faces Osaka under the lights

Aryna Sabalenka against Naomi Osaka, scheduled for not before 8.15 p.m. on Monday on Court Philippe-Chatrier, will be the first women’s singles match in the Roland-Garros night session in nearly three years.

The previous one was Sabalenka’s own fourth-round meeting with Sloane Stephens on 4 June 2023. Since then, 19 consecutive Roland-Garros night sessions had gone to men’s matches. Across the entire history of the night format, introduced in 2021, only four of the slots – fewer than one in fourteen – had been given to women.

That includes last year’s tournament, in which not a single women’s match was scheduled in the slot. Mauresmo, the tournament director, defended the policy at the time on the grounds of duration. Men’s Grand Slam matches are best-of-five sets; women’s are best-of-three.

men’s draw stops cooperating

The night session, broadcast in France exclusively on Amazon Prime Video and sold as a premium ticket, was, in her telling, structured around the principle that viewers were more likely to get a longer match – and therefore more for their money – when the slot went to the men.

Pressed in 2025 as to whether the message was that the women were not worthy, Mauresmo stopped the questioner. “That’s not what we’re saying. It has never been that the girls are not worthy to play at night.”

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What changed for Monday is partly what happens when the men’s draw stops cooperating. Jannik Sinner was beaten by Juan Manuel Cerúndolo in the second round. Novak Djokovic was beaten in the third by João Fonseca, his first defeat at this stage since 2009. Carlos Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion, was not in Paris at all, having withdrawn injured before the start.

Sabalenka – Osaka, third meeting in 2026

The night slot on Monday has Félix Auger-Aliassime, the fourth seed and the only top-ten player left in the entire top half, playing Alejandro Tabilo as the third match on Chatrier from 3.30 p.m. The structural pull of “the best match of the day on Chatrier” – Mauresmo’s stated framing for the slot – no longer points at the men’s draw in the way it has in previous years.

It points instead at Sabalenka and Osaka. The world No. 1 and the four-time Grand Slam champion; their third meeting of 2026 after Indian Wells and Madrid; Osaka in her first Roland-Garros second week; Sabalenka through to her own fourth round in straight sets each time, including a 6-0 7-5 win over Daria Kasatkina on Saturday.

Osaka, asked after her own win on Saturday whether she expected a Sabalenka-Osaka match to be considered for the night session, said only: “Honestly, I’m pretty easy-going. I really don’t mind what court I play or what time I play.” Asked whether she had played a night match here before, she paused. “I think you guys would be able to tell me – but the match I played with Iga (Swiatek in 2024), was it a night?” The reporter told her no. “Close enough,” she replied. “Hey…”

“We deserve equal treatment”

Sabalenka had not been asked the question directly on Saturday, but had been on the record many times before. “We deserve equal treatment,” she said in 2025. “There were a lot of great battles that would be cool to see as a night session. More people in the stands watching these incredible battles. We deserve to be put on a bigger stage.”

The tournament has not commented on the scheduling decision, and Mauresmo has not yet held a press conference at this edition. The chronology, though, is unusually stark. The first women’s match in a Chatrier night session in 1,062 days falls on the first day in fifteen years that no men’s player with a previous Grand Slam title is left in the tournament’s top half.

The match is also the fifth women’s night session ever staged at Roland-Garros. Of the four others – Alizé Cornet against Jelena Ostapenko in 2022, Sabalenka against Stephens in 2023, and two earlier – none has involved the world No. 1.

Order of play — Roland-Garros, Monday 1 June 2026

Court Philippe-Chatrier — from 11:00

1. Flavio Cobolli (ITA) [10] v Zachary Svajda (USA) — men’s singles
2. Maja Chwalinska (POL) v Diane Parry (FRA) — women’s singles
3. Not before 15:30: Félix Auger-Aliassime (CAN) [4] v Alejandro Tabilo (CHI) — men’s singles
4. Not before 20:15 (night session): Aryna Sabalenka [1] v Naomi Osaka (JPN) [16] — women’s singles

Court Suzanne-Lenglen — from 11:00

1. Anastasia Potapova (AUT) [28] v Anna Kalinskaya [22] — women’s singles
2. Madison Keys (USA) [19] v Diana Shnaider [25] — women’s singles
3. Juan Manuel Cerúndolo (ARG) v Matteo Berrettini (ITA) — men’s singles
4. Frances Tiafoe (USA) [19] v Matteo Arnaldi (ITA) — men’s singles