Tennis matches running beyond the standard time limit is not something new. When it comes to the US Open, the tournament has a notorious past of excruciatingly long and late-night games. The night session at the US Open begins at 7 pm. So, a really long match has the possibility of stretching into the early morning hours. The quarter-final match last year between eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner ended at 2:50 am, lasting more than five hours. Many players have pointed out the damage done by these late-night duels.
Ahead of this year’s US Open, Elena Rybakina recounted her personal experience of retiring from a second-round fixture in Cincinnati Open. Despite barely training for her first Cincinnati Open encounter, Rybakina managed to win the tournament opener. Days before entering the Cincinnati Open, Rybakina finished her Canadian Open quarter-final match against Daria Kasatkina at 3 am in Montreal. The late-night game took a toll on Rybakina and as a result, she had to concede a semi-final defeat at the hands of Liudmila Samsonova.
“It was horrible, to be honest. It’s not easy because they [the injuries] are not even because of the amount of tennis I played or how long the matches were. It’s really tough to recover when you go to sleep at 5am,” Rybakina told The Guardian while recalling her experience in Montreal.
Unfortunately, the situation is quite unlikely to change for Elena Rybakina and others at the Flushing Meadows.
The issue of tennis players facing the brunt of late-night games at the US Open has already been discussed. US Open tournament director Stacey Allaster recently revealed that there was no plan to change the schedule of the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year.
“Without question late-night matches were heavily discussed and reviewed after the 2022 U.S. Open. We looked at starting the evening session earlier, instead of 7 p.m. start at 6 p.m., but it’s not really a possibility because it’s hard for New Yorkers to get here even at 7 p.m. We talked about one match at night, but we felt that’s not fair to our fans,” Allaster had said.
Defending champion Iga Swiatek has talked about better scheduling at the US Open for the sake of player health. “Maybe we should focus more on what is healthy for players because we have to compete every week. The Tour is so intense with travel that it would be nice in the future to focus on players – especially next year when there will be more and more mandatory tournaments and longer tournaments,” Swiatek said.
Another player who has criticised the late-night matches is 2012 US Open champion Andy Murray. “I think it’s just generally not good for anyone. Obviously when the players complain about that stuff, you sort of hear, ‘oh, shut up and get on with it’ or ‘try working in a warehouse from 9 to 5,’”Murray said.
www.hindustantimes.com
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