It is towards the end of my peek behind the curtain when we duck into a bunker-type room, completely dark other than thousands of dials, switches and buttons – and the light coming from an enormous wall of screens. Bank on bank of monitors showing courts, crowds, backstage shots and interviews. A crew member remarks: ‘That’s what covering 18 courts, in 19 languages, in 49 countries looks like.’
Mail Sport has gone behind the scenes on the gargantuan broadcasting operation that is TNT Sport at the French Open 2025.
For 36 years, Eurosport broadcast Roland Garros and that pan-continental operation was spectacular enough but things are on another level this year.
The story begins 12 months ago, when Warner Bros Discovery agreed to buy BT’s stake in TNT Sports. And then, in a deal struck right here at Roland Garros, TNT acquired the American broadcast rights to the French Open for a decade.
Discovery already owned Eurosport, and in February it was announced that in the UK – the channel lives on elsewhere – Eurosport would be folded into TNT.
And so in one year the operation has gone from six pundits to 30. The number of crew members has more than doubled to 250. Four studios, 43 cameras, all linked together by a network of 374 strands of fibre cables.
Mail Sport’s Matthew Lambwell went behind the scenes of TNT Sports French Open coverage
Laura Robson, Caroline Wozniacki, Mats Wilander and Tim Henman are among the cast of pundits assembled by the broadcaster for their coverage of the French Open this year
The Discovery-owned Eurosport had broadcast the French Open for 36 years but was folded into TNT Sports, while TNT also hold the American rights for the tournament for a decade
The crew’s day starts at 8am, three hours before the start of play. Schedules are mapped out and once the talent arrives, rehearsals begin. The show must go on until play finishes, often past midnight. Then it all begins again the next day.
It is a huge undertaking. TNT also broadcast the Olympics last year, and Scott Young, who leads Discovery’s sports businesses in Europe, tells me the scale of the current operation is more similar to the Games than to previous Eurosport coverage.
As the French Open builds towards its climax, we take a tour around the multiple Discovery studios to see how it all comes together.
We start at the TNT UK studio, where the morning show is just finishing, and they are doing something a little different. Host Craig Doyle is challenging Tim Henman to recreate the incredible – but illegal – Carlos Alcaraz trick shot against Ben Shelton when, with the ball drifting out of his reach, he threw his racket, the ball hit the strings and went for a winner.
They are on a grass clearing in the Place des Mousquetaires, the heart of Roland Garros, and Henman has a few warm up attempts before the cameras start rolling. They go live and Tiger Tim nails it first time.
Immediately next door – like walking between living room and dining room – is the TNT US studio, where they are on a break. Former world No1 Caroline Wozniacki is lying back with her feet on the table chatting to Chris Eubanks, who is miming a double handed backhand, discussing a technical point. That is one example of a general sense I get: even when the cameras are off, the pundits, the ‘talent’ as they are known, are always talking tennis.
The next stop is TruTV, another US channel under the Discovery umbrella. On the desk here is Mark Petchey, Emma Raducanu’s part-time coach, and two recently retired Americans, Coco Vandeweghe and Sam Querrey.
Here the vibe is different, more off-the-cuff. Instead of showing live matches in their entirety they chop from one court to the other as interesting incidents occur or sets reach a climax.
Host Craig Doyle and Tim Henman prepare for TNT Sports coverage from the UK studio
Next door former world No1 Caroline Wozniacki chats to Chris Eubanks about a backhand as they discuss a technical point during a break in TNT Sports coverage in the United States
TruTV, another US channel under the Discovery umbrella, chops from one court to the other as interesting incidents occur, with Emma Raducanu’s coach Mark Petchey, left, on the desk
‘It’s for real tennis fans,’ the floor manager tells me. ‘It’s for people who can’t come to Roland Garros but it still feels like you’re here – you can walk to court 14, then go to court 2, and you’re just getting the best bits.’
Pundits are assigned to a particular channel, but with flexibility to move from studio to studio. So Petchey, a TruTV man, popped over to the UK desk to talk Emma Raducanu. Tim Henman goes next door to the US studio to give Americans the lowdown on Jack Draper.
So that is three different channels, all under the same umbrella and with a loose agreement to share pundits. It all sounds like a logistical nightmare but somehow, by a combination of meticulous scheduling and on-the-hoof flexibility, it works.
With the American channels have come two pundits who are still active on the tour, 2023 Wimbledon quarter-finalist Chris Eubanks and 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens.
‘It’s cool,’ Eurosport veteran Mats Wilander tells me. ‘You hear their insights on the players of today. You kind of know because you’re watching them, but it’s a big difference from playing against them. Yeah. And also, not only that, but knowing, knowing the players from the locker room, from the players restaurant, from traveling from hotels. So they got unbelievable insight that obviously we don’t have.’
When I return to the studios in the afternoon, Wilander is recording some social media content in Swedish. He has also been in the UK studio, done live commentary, and roving reporting for Eurosport. He also works for the French Federation, conducting on-court interviews. Oh, and the odd piece for CNN, another member of the extended Discovery family.
How on earth does he manage that lot? ‘A very organized brain,’ says the 60-year-old. ‘You get used to it, you realise you’re always on, there’s always something coming up within the next hour. It’s not like you’re in front of the camera a whole lot of minutes every day. It’s more that you just have to be ready for the 14 hours that you are here. Always on call, always ready.’
The marriage of American an pan-European coverage is not just an issue of logistics. There is also a need to cater to assimilate two distinct styles of broadcasting.
An enormous bank of screens covers 18 courts, with TNT Sports broadcasting in 49 countries
The bunker has monitors which are across the crowds, backstage shots and interviews
‘It’s a collaboration between 30 years of broadcasting on Eurosport and the incoming enthusiasm and scale of American broadcasting,’ says Young, who as we speak keeps his peripheral vision on two screens showing TNT US and TruTV, plus a bank of TNT UK and Eurosport.
The ethos of Eurosport was to provide a roving, exploratory presence in the grounds, taking viewers among the nooks and crannies of Roland Garros. That remains the case for the continental coverage, but the UK and US are very much studio shows.
‘Americans very much lean into physical sets,’ Young explains. ‘And because Roland Garros is our first Grand Slam event on TNT in the UK, we wanted a visual point of difference. That’s why we built the dual set.
‘We built exactly the same superstructure so our own pundits and also some of the players could move back and forward seamlessly between the two shows.’
The content is different too. The UK coverage plays it a little straighter, the US are more wacky.
‘The American production is introducing French culture to an American audience through tennis,’ says Young.
‘They do a lot of pieces in the city. Talk a lot about French cuisine, fashion. A lot of Americans probably haven’t travelled out to Paris, so how do we also bring the French flavour into the broadcast?’
‘In the UK, if we started saying, “Croissant or pain au chocolat, which do we prefer for breakfast?” a UK audience would rather we get back to the tennis.’
Mats Wilander is among those managing a schedule that includes working for TV and conducting post-match interviews on court for the French Tennis Federation
This fortnight has been the culmination of a year of work, since the US rights were acquired here in 2024. ‘We knew immediately it was going to be a whole other level,’ says Young.
‘It took a year to put it together. We were on ground earlier here than we’ve ever been (construction on the studios began a month before the tournament) because we knew we had to get it right.’
Sinner’s stroll exposes flaw in Mauresmo’s logic
It is now official: for a second year in a row, every French Open night session has been a men’s match.
Watching Jannik Sinner despatch Andrey Rublev for the loss of just eight games on Monday evening, I thought again of tournament director Amelie Mauresmo’s justification of two sets good three sets better.
Mauresmo argues that a one-sided women’s match can be over in an hour; with a one-sided men’s match you get a minimum of three sets – oh, so if it’s a rubbish spectacle, at least you get to spend longer watching boring tennis?
It’s like that Woody Allen joke at the start of Annie Hall, the two old ladies complaining about a restaurant: ‘Boy the food at this place is really terrible,’ says one.
‘I know,’ replies the other. ‘And such small portions.’
Amelie Mauresmo stressed that men’s matches provide a guarantee of three sets for fans
World No1 Jannik Sinner’s crushed Andrey Rublev for the loss of just eight games on Monday
No women’s match has been placed in the night session for the second consecutive year
One to watch
Mimi Xu, GB, 17
Roland Garros may still be in full flow but the British grass court season has begun, and there was a cracking win for one of our crop of highly-rated female juniors.
In the Birmingham Challenger event, Swansea’s Xu beat No1 seed and world No52 Alycia Parks 6-2, 7-6. It was her first ever match against a player in the world’s top 100.
