The men's singles final of the French Open drew its largest television audience in four years in the host country, as Rafael Nadal strengthened his iron grip on the trophy with a 13th win at Roland Garros.

France 2, the main channel of public-service broadcaster France Télévisions, attracted an average 3.77 million viewers as the Spaniard defeated Novak Djokovic, the world number one from Serbia, in straight sets yesterday.

The audience share was 27.1 per cent.

Nadal's victories over Austrian Dominic Thiem in the 2019 and 2018 French Opens final had both averaged 3.3 million viewers (29.7 per cent and 26.2 per cent market shares respectively) on France 2.

The 2017 final, in which Nadal won again, that time against Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka, averaged 3.1 million viewers (36.5 per cent), while the 2016 final, when Djokovic defeated the UK's Andy Murray, remains the recent standard bearer, with an average audience of 4.1 million viewers (34.8 per cent).

In Saturday's women's singles final, France 2 attracted 1.8 million average viewers as Iga Swiatek became the first Polish player to win a grand slam.

The 19-year-old, the youngest French Open women's champion in 28 years, beat USA's Sofia Kenin in straight sets. 

The audience average was the same France 2 pulled in for the 2019 women's singles final, with the 2018 final attracting a similar 1.78 million people.

Eurosport, the Discovery-owned, pan-European sports broadcaster, also showed the finals in France.

In Poland, the women's final was watched by 2.52 million people across Eurosport and the Discovery-owned TVN, a market share of 27 per cent.

France Télévisions and Eurosport are in the last year of their domestic French Open rights deal with the FFT, the French Tennis Federation. 

The public-service broadcaster will remain on board for the next three-year cycle, but Eurosport will be replaced by Amazon, the online retail giant, which will show the showpiece evening sessions for the first 10 days of the tournament.

Sportcal