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This happened again. Of course it happened.
Two tennis players, starting around midnight, battled until sunrise in front of a crowd of fans, with a team of children in their early teens chasing the balls at around four in the morning.
Last year Andy Murray was dueling with Thanasi Kokkinakis until the night sky started to light up at about 4 am. On Thursday and Friday, it was Russia’s Daniil Medvedev Finland’s Emil Ruusvuori is doing a tennis version of a 2am jazz set.
“I don’t stop,” Medvedev said in an on-court interview after coming back from two sets down to defeat Ruusuvuori 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6(1) ” 6-0. Looking at the scoreline, Ruusuvuori decided not to do so and it was hard to blame him.
If it were not so regular the dynamic would seem absurd. At the main two tournaments where this occurs, the Australian and US Opens, it is considered a badge of honor rather than a serious risk for the players involved, especially as whoever wins the match has to go to bed around 6 am. , then have to come back the next day.
(Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
By Friday afternoon, Medvedev was floating around Melbourne Park after a strange night’s sleep and trying to figure out how to prepare for Saturday evening’s match against Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“I woke up at 7 o’clock for my match today and I’m sure he was asleep,” Medvedev’s good friend and fellow Russian Karen Khachanov said Friday after his victory over Tomas Machak of the Czech Republic. “There should be some limits because especially best-of-five, you know the match can go on for five hours and then you start at 11 pm. It’s not normal, it’s not healthy for anyone to be healthy, ready for the next day, the next match. Your entire night’s sleep is ruined. Gold is part of the recovery, one of the biggest parts. Food, everything we do, treatments, ice baths. All these things and you can’t sleep. So how will you feel the next day?”
In recent years, a growing number of players have said enough is enough.
“Late night matches not only harm players – they have negative consequences for fans, ball kids, event staff and all stakeholders involved,” said Ahmed Nasser, executive director of the Professional Tennis Players Association, Novak Djokovic’s co-organization. ” It was founded in 2020 to address, among other issues, the working conditions for perhaps the most important people in sport. “From a health and safety standpoint, it’s not optimal, it’s clearly not appropriate,” Nassar said.
Following pressure from the PTPA, as well as Jannik Sinner’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Masters in November, he won a match that started at 12.30am and finished at around 3am – thereby forcing the men’s and women’s tours, the ATP and officials to withdraw from the Paris Masters. got help. The WTA will agree to ban matches starting after 11pm from next year. Matches scheduled for one court that is still in use after 10.30pm will be moved to another court and both tours have told tournament organizers that they want the night session to be held at 7 or 7.30pm instead. Start at 6.30 pm, with not more than two matches. Night programme.
(Jean Catuff/Getty Images)
However, since tennis is tennis, seven individual organizations have the right to make their own rules with little input from active players, with the four most important tournaments – Wimbledon, the US Open, the Australian Open and the French Open – following this rule. There is no need to do it. ,
Late night finishes are not an issue at Wimbledon, where there is an 11 pm curfew, or at the French Open, where only one match is scheduled in the night session, but in Melbourne and New York curfews are not observed, So some of his greatest matches were ultimately revealed to a few hundred brave souls.
“It’s a very obvious thing that needs to change,” said Andy Murray, noting the late-night starts and finishes and tour rule changes last week. “From a player’s perspective, it will definitely help with recovery for the next day’s matches and things like that. “I definitely think for the fans and the tournament, it probably looks a little more professional if you’re not finishing work at three or four in the morning.”
Tennis Australia has made some changes to the tournament this year, aimed at avoiding late night starts and finishes. Most notably, it has scheduled just two afternoon matches instead of three on the main show court, reducing the chances of a late start to the evening session.
This extended the first round from two to three days, allowing more space to schedule the first 128 singles matches. This has had little impact on the late start because the evening session start time remains at 7 pm and because tennis matches are longer than before because they have more depth, more athleticism and points, allowing games, Sets and matches last longer.
On the opening night, the defending women’s champion, Aryna Sabalenka, took to the court at 11.30pm after Novak Djokovic’s four-hour battle with Dino Prizmich.
It should be noted, and Tennis Australia officials attempted to do so, that a wide range of events led to the late start and finish on Thursday.
Two unexpected showers occurred in the afternoon, the first of which delayed the game at Rod Laver Arena because rain was not forecast and its roof was open. Inga Swiatek usually storms into matches like she’s going to a Taylor Swift concert, but her duel with Danielle Collins lasted more than three hours.
(Robert Prange/Getty Images)
Then Carlos Alcaraz’s victory over Lorenzo Sonego lasted nearly three and a half hours. Since play at Rod Laver does not begin until noon, compared to 11 a.m. on other courts, longer afternoon matches result in the evening session starting at 7 p.m. Then the first evening match between Elena Rybakina and Anna Blinkova lasted almost three hours and included a deciding set tiebreaker with a final score of 22–20, the longest tiebreaker in Grand Slam history.
Medvedev stood in the tunnel for half an hour, waiting for it to end. Finally he reached the court at around 11.30 pm. Another, although smaller, show court, about 250 meters from Rod Laver, was available for about two hours at that time. After four hours and five sets, Medvedev was in the third round.
On average, there should be about nine hours of tennis across two men’s and two women’s matches at the Australian Open. Through Thursday and Friday morning, the action on Rod Laver lasted nearly 14 hours.
One advantage of the late, late finish was that Tennis Australia officials discussed it in the waning light of day on Friday afternoon. They were watching social media and saw lots of fans in Europe and the United States who, given the double-digit-hour time difference, spent a portion of their workday enjoying Medvedev’s victory.
That was all the world number three needed to pull off an all-nighter.
(Top photo: Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)
