The French Open will have a new television partner beginning in 2025.
The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported Friday that Warner Bros. Discovery—the home of TNT Sports— have agreed to a 10-year deal worth $650 million to televise the French Open in the United States. The deal starts in 2025 and runs through ’34.
NBC has broadcast the French Open in the United States every year since 1975, aside from 1980 to ’82 when CBS aired the event.
TNT Sports is best known for its NBA coverage, although the future of that partnership is in jeopardy as the league searches for a new television rights contract after the 2024-25 season. Multiple reports in recent months indicate the NBA is preparing to leave TNT behind as ESPN, NBC and Amazon will become its new broadcast partners.
Tennis isn’t the only sport Warner Bros. Discovery has splurged on outside of basketball in recent weeks. Last month, ESPN agreed to sublicense coverage of select College Football Playoff games to TNT for the next five years.
While the future of TNT’s beloved Inside the NBA show featuring Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal hangs in the balance, the network is set to head to the clay courts next spring.
After years of futile efforts, Jasmine Paolini is enjoying her career-best run at the 2024 French Open, into the quarterfinals for the first time in six attempts.
The World No. 15 has struggled at Roland-Garros but has won four straight to set up her first opponent inside the world No. 70 Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinals.
The world No. 4 Rybakina is enjoying her best appearance at the French Open since 2021, which ties for her career-best mark. Can she extend it and make the semifinals?
The two top 15 players have played two full matches against one another, both won by Rybakina, but the most recent one was a three-set match on (indoor) clay in Stuttgart (6-3, 6-7, 6-3). Paolini couldn’t make good on her second serves, winning 39% of those points and facing 15 break points to Rybakina’s seven BPs.
So, how can the Italian close the gap against Rybakina after facing a low level of competition thus far? I’d say it's on Paolini holding serve and dragging the match into potential tiebreak situations. Ryabakina has a vicious first serve on clay and has held on nearly 75% of her 70 tracked matches on clay, per TennisAbstract. However, she has only broken opponents on about 38% of return games.
A lot of Rybakina’s matches in the run-up to Roland-Garros featured longer matches. In eight clay court wins before the French Open, four of them went to three sets, including her win against Paolini. While I won’t call for the outright upset, I think we see a bit more resistance than the odds expect and this is a longer match.
I’ll back the over games as my preferred bet in this French Open quarterfinal.
PICK: OVER 20.5 Games (-110)
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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The greatest men’s tennis player in history just hit a serious roadblock in his pursuit of adding to his record number of Grand Slam titles.
Novak Djokovic was forced to withdraw from the French Open with a knee injury Tuesday, one day after he outlasted Francisco Cerundolo in a five-set thriller in the fourth round that took nearly five hours to complete.
An MRI found that Djokovic has a torn medial meniscus in his right knee. According to multiple reports, Djokovic will undergo surgery to repair the injury in Paris on Wednesday.
The surgery places Djokovic’s status for Wimbledon in serious doubt. The tournament is set to begin on July 1, giving Djokovic less than a month to recover from the procedure. It’ll also be a fairly tight turnaround before this summer’s Olympics in Paris, which begin on July 27.
“The likelihood is that Djokovic will skip the grass-court swing to focus on playing at the Paris Olympics,” ESPN’s Tom Hamilton reported.
It makes sense that Djokovic would want to prioritize the Olympics over Wimbledon. He’s already won seven times at the All England Club and Olympic gold is the only major honor that he has yet to win in his storied career. He won bronze at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing but has failed to even medal at the last three Olympics. At 37, this is almost assuredly Djokovic’s last chance to win gold.
Skipping the grass court season could also be beneficial for Djokovic because he wouldn’t have to reacclimate himself to the clay courts of Roland Garros, where the Olympic tournament will be held.
But it also seems naive to just assume that, at his age, Djokovic will be able to recover from knee surgery and pick up where he left off. By the time the Olympics begin, he will be older than the oldest Grand Slam champion in men’s tennis history (1972 Australian Open champ Ken Rosewell, who was 37 years, 54 days old when he won). Djokovic’s contemporaries Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal started fading when they reached the age Djokovic is now, both due largely to injuries (a knee for Federer and a hip for Nadal). And Djokovic was already struggling this season before the injury, failing to reach the final in any of the six tournaments he played before Roland Garros. It’s fair to wonder what he’ll look like after rehabbing an injury.
Whether or not the end is imminent for Djokovic, his injury makes it natural to start thinking about the next era of men’s tennis. His career might not be over yet, but it will be before long. His withdrawal from the French led to one major torch-passing moment, as 22-year-old Jannik Sinner will now become the No. 1 player in the world at the conclusion of the tournament. He and 21-year-old Carlos Alcaraz (currently ranked No. 3) are the future of the sport. The question is how much longer they’ll have to battle with Djokovic.
Brown (7) and Tatum will play in their second NBA Finals. / Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
When fans watched Novak Djokovic crush Robby Ginepri 6–0, 6–0, 6–3 in the first round of the 2005 French Open, could they have known what was coming next?
That turned out to be the first Grand Slam match win for Djokovic, who won his 369th such match Friday against Italy's Lorenzo Musetti 7–5, 6–7 (8), 2–6, 6–3, 6–0. With the win, he tied Swiss legend Roger Federer's record. Rafael Nadal is third with 314.
Musetti did not make it easy on Djokovic, but the 37-year-old defending champion recovered to take the final two sets. He will play Argentina's Francisco Cerúndolo Monday morning in the fourth round.
Djokovic's first match victory in a major came mere days after he turned 18, and took place so long ago that he won it while representing Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro gained its independence from Serbia a year later.
Djokovic remains in search of his record 25th major championship.
