Novak Djokovic given exactly what he didn’t want as French Open request rejected

The 24-time Grand Slam winner won’t be happy with Roland Garros officials as he’s handed the Saturday night session for the second year running – having wanted to avoid it due to the Champions League final

Novak Djokovic has seen his request not to play the Saturday night session at the French Open SNUBBED. Now the 24-time Grand Slam champion – an AC Milan fan – will miss the Champions League final for the second consecutive year.

The Roland Garros scheduling is continuing to cause controversy with no women’s matches allocated to a single of the night sessions again this year.

Djokovic played on the middle Saturday here last year – and his match against Lorenzo Musetti did not finish until 3am. He suffered a knee injury in his next match and had to pull out.

Speaking after his second round win on Thursday, the Serbian superstar announced he will be supporting Paris Saint-Germain and said: “I will definitely watch it if I’m not playing the night session. Yeah, that will be nice. FYI, Roland Garros schedule!”

But the 24-time Grand Slam champion will play Austrian qualifier Filip Misolic at 8.15pm on Saturday – starting just before the big kickoff in Munich.

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France No.1 Arthur Fils will play No.17 seed Andrey Rublev looks the best game for French TV. But that clash will be third on Court Suzanne-Lenglen – at about 4pm – after the PSG fan had his plea heard “Let’s hope I’m playing in the afternoon but not during the night,” said the Paris-born star.

Jack Draper will play Joao Fonseca in the third match on Court Simonne-Mathieu – about 2-3pm UK time – followed by the Battle of Britain between Jacob Fearnley and Cam Norrie.

Speaking before the schedule announcement, tournament director Amelie Mauresmo said: “We are very happy for PSG. We’re trying to do our job organising this tournament. Fifteen thousand people will come over here to watch tennis tomorrow.

“We’ll try to give them the best possible match

“We can’t prohibit people to watch their telephone and to follow the football match simultaneously. There won’t be 10 or 20 goals. If once or twice we have a bit of an uproar, it’s going to be fine.”