The scheduling of Australian Open matches has sparked a rethink after the men's quarterfinal between Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev did not finish until 1:21am AEDT.
Key points:
- Sinner and Rublev did not begin their match until 10:42pm AEDT
- The evening session started two hours later than scheduled
- There have been several late finishes at this year's Australian Open
Sinner defeated Rublev 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 after they began their match on Rod Laver Arena much later than expected at 10:42pm AEDT on Tuesday due to the afternoon session on day 10 extending into the evening.
Aryna Sabalenka and Barbora Krejčíková took to the court for the first match of the evening session two hours late at 9pm AEDT, with the delay caused by the finish times of the earlier quarterfinals on Rod Laver Arena.
The schedule of play for day 11 shows main draw matches on Rod Laver Arena and Margaret Court Arena starting at midday AEDT, an hour earlier than Tuesday.
Tournament organisers spoke with Sinner and Rublev about the prospect of moving their match to another court.
"It was half-an-hour where we didn't know exactly where we were going to play, " Sinner said.
Sinner said it did not matter to him what court he and Rublev played on as he was "just focused about the match".
Discussions were also held with Sabalenka and Krejčíková about whether they wanted to move their match away from Rod Laver Arena while Novak Djokovic was playing Taylor Fritz in the opening men's quarterfinal that lasted almost four hours.
"We just decided to see how the Novak and Fritz match will go," said Sabalenka after her 6-2, 6-3 win over Krejčíková.
"If it's going be too long, then we kind of agreed for the possibility to be moved.
"But Novak won third and fourth sets, so we just went on court as normal."
The match between Djokovic and Fritz did not begin until after 4:30pm AEDT as the first women's quarterfinal – involving Coco Gauff and Marta Kostyuk – went to three sets.
Gauff triumphed after more than three hours on court, with her match starting on schedule at 1pm AEDT to accommodate a men's legends' doubles fixture.
The Australian Open began a day earlier than in previous years in the hope this would relieve pressure on match scheduling and avoid players taking to the court late at night.
But this year's tournament has seen several early-morning finishes, highlighted by Daniil Medvedev's second-round win over Emil Ruusuvuori concluding at 3:39am AEDT last Friday.
Fritz concerned about player welfare
Speaking to the media prior to the Sinner-Rublev match, Fritz said he felt for both players having to start their match late at night.
"I think it's rough," said Fritz, who lost 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 to Djokovic.
"I was talking about that with a group of guys and Medvedev before, because he finished that one match so late. It just screws up your whole [body] clock.
"I pray for those guys."
Fritz said late finishes cause great disruption to a player's sleep schedule.
"In one case I get it, as matches go long some days," he said.
"Like, today in particular, my match was long, the match before us was really long.
"But there's got to be something they can do where people aren't playing until 2:00, 3:00am.
"I don't think people fully understand how much time we actually have to spend doing stuff after we finish playing as far as having an ice bath, treatment with physios, massage, all this stuff.
"If you finish at 2:00am, there is no chance I'm going to sleep until 5:00, 6:00am."
Fourth seed Sinner will face 10-time Australian Open winner Djokovic in Friday's semifinals.
Djokovic dismissed the suggestion he would have an advantage over Sinner due to enjoying a longer recovery time.
"We have two days. It's not much of an advantage that I see there," he said.
"We are playing semifinals on Friday, so there's plenty of time for whoever wins that match tonight to recover."
Sinner said he was confident he would recover in time for his clash with Djokovic.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to hit half-an-hour or 45 minutes really late in the day, just to touch the ball a little bit," he said.
"Then after, trying to sleep as much as possible, trying to recover."
Djokovic said he did not know what the "best scenario" was to avoid late finishes.
"There are different ways to address this," he said.
"Maybe scheduling less matches on the centre court, doing it in one session, which is most likely not going to happen because every session carries a lot of economic value for them (tournament organisers).
"And TV broadcasting, there's a lot of elements that are in play. TV broadcasting pays a lot of money to the tournament and sponsors the tournament."
The first game of the Djokovic-Fritz match took 16 minutes to complete.
The opening set lasted one hour and 24 minutes.