The head of the Australian Open has insisted that there is no need to make changes to the tournament schedule after one of their men’s matches didn’t finish until after 4am.
Craig Tiley has hit back at critics who have called for adjustments to be made to protect players. An argument which has been said during other tournaments in the past, including the US Open. The latest debate was sparked by Andy Murray’s mammoth win over Thanasi Kokkinakis which began around 22:00 and finished at 04:05 local time. The match was the second-longest in Australian Open history.
Speaking to reporters in the early hours, three-time Grand Slam champion Murray called for changes to be made. Arguing that such late finishes benefit nobody and voiced particular concern about expecting ball kids to be on the court so late.
“If my child was a ball kid for a tournament, they’re coming home at 5 in the morning, as a parent, I’m snapping at that,” he said. “It’s not beneficial for them. It’s not beneficial for the umpires, the officials. I don’t think it’s amazing for the fans. It’s not good for the players.’
“We talk about it all the time. It’s been spoken about for years. When you start the night matches late and have conditions like that, these things are going to happen.”
Despite Murray’s criticism, Tiley has hit back by arguing that the length of Murray’s match was a rare scenario before adding that such situations are inevitable due to the tournament’s tight schedule. Earlier in the week, play at the Australian Open was also delayed due to a heat warning followed by rain showers. The tournament is currently the only Grand Slam to have three stadiums which have roofs.
“At this point there is no need to change the schedule,’ Tiley told Channel 9’s Today programme. “We will always look at it, when we do the (tournament) debrief – like we do every year.
“… It was an epic match and when you schedule a match like that just before 10 (pm) in the evening before you’re not expecting it to go close to six hours.
“… when you have 25 sessions, two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people coming through the gate, all the best players …in the world here, you’re going to have those moments.
“… There are so many variables. Over the last few days we have had extreme heat, we’ve had over five breaks of rain, we’ve had over five breaks of rain, we’ve had cold and those are – it’s Melbourne you but don’t often get those conditions in such a short period of time so we’ve had three late nights with scheduling trying to catch up with matches.”
One possible solution would be to start the night session earlier than the 7pm slot. Although organizers might be reluctant to do so due to contracts they have with broadcasters.
Tennis great Martina Navratilova, who won three out of her 18 Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open, has also called for changes to be made to the scheduling policy.
“It is essential we create better rules in tennis regarding the weather(light and wind) and starting times or cutoff times for matches,” Navratilova wrote on Twitter.
The latest a match has finished at the Australian Open is 4:34am. That was back in 2008 when Lleyton Hewitt defeated Marcos Baghdatis.
