Medvedev's finish at 3:40 is the latest absurd example of why tennis needs to change

It happened again. Of course that happened.

Two tennis players who start around midnight and compete in front of a group of fans almost until dawn, while a group of children in their early teens run after balls at almost 4 in the morning.

Last year it was Andy Murray who dueled Thanasi Kokkinakis until the night sky started to lighten around 4am. On Thursday and Friday it was Daniil Medvedev from Russia and Emil Ruusuvuori from Finland plays the tennis version of the 2am jazz set.

“I wouldn't have stayed,” Medvedev said in an on-court interview after completing his comeback from two sets down to eliminate Ruusuvuori 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6( 1), 6-0. Judging from the outcome, Ruusuvuori decided not to, and it was hard to blame him.

The dynamic would seem absurd if it weren't so routine. The two main tournaments where this happens, the Australian and US Opens, seem to view this as a badge of honor rather than a serious risk to the players involved. Especially whoever wins the competition goes to bed around six in the morning and then goes to bed. have to come back the next day.

Medvedev was floating around Melbourne Park mid-afternoon on Friday after having a strange night's sleep, trying to figure out how to prepare for his Saturday night match against Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime.

“I wake up at seven o'clock today for my match and I'm sure he went to sleep then,” Karen Khachanov, Medvedev's close friend and compatriot, said Friday after his victory over Tomas Machac of the Czech Republic. “There have to be certain limits, because especially with the best-of-five you know that the match can last five hours and then you start at 11 p.m. This is not normal and not healthy for someone to recover, to prepare for the next day, the next match. You lose a full night of sleep. Sleeping is part of recovery, one of the biggest parts. The food, everything we do, treatments, ice baths. All these things and you don't sleep. So how are you going to feel the next day?”

In recent years, a growing number of players have said enough is enough.

“Late night matches are not only harmful to players – they negatively impact fans, ball kids, event staff and all stakeholders involved,” said Ahmad Nassar, executive director of the Professional Tennis Player Association, Novak Djokovic's organization. founded in 2020 to address, among other things, working conditions for perhaps the most important people in sport. “From a health and safety perspective, it's not optimal, it's honestly not fair,” Nassar said.

The pressure from the PTPA — as well as Jannik Sinner's decision to withdraw from the Paris Masters in November after winning a match that started at 12:30 a.m. and ended at almost 3 a.m. — helped officials on the men's and women's tours , the ATP and WTA agree to ban matches starting after 11 p.m. from next year. Matches scheduled for a field still in use after 10:30 p.m. will be moved to another field and both tours have told tournament organizers they want the evening sessions to start at 6:30 p.m. rather than 7:30 p.m., with no more than two matches on the track. night schedule.

(Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

However, because tennis is tennis, with seven different organizations having the power to set their own rules with little input from active players, the four major tournaments – Wimbledon, the US Open, the Australian Open and the French Open – do not have to follow this rule not to follow. .

Late night playback isn't a problem at Wimbledon, which has an 11pm curfew, or at the French Open, where only one match is scheduled in the night sessions, but Melbourne and New York don't adhere to the curfew, so some of their best matches ultimately unfold in front of a few hundred strong souls.

“It's very clear that something has to change,” Andy Murray said last week about the late start and finish and changes to tour rules. “From a player's perspective it will definitely help with recovery for the next day's games and things like that. I definitely think it probably looks a little more professional for the fans and the tournament if you're not done at three or four in the morning.”

Tennis Australia has made some adjustments to the tournament this year that they said were aimed at avoiding late starts and finishes. Most notably, only two afternoon races on the main show courts are scheduled instead of three, reducing the likelihood of a late start to the evening session.

It expanded the first round from two to three days, creating more space to schedule the first 128 singles matches. That had little effect on the late start because the start time of the evening session remained 7 p.m. and because tennis matches are longer than in the past because there is more depth, more athleticism and points, meaning games, sets and matches last longer.

On opening night, defending women's champion Aryna Sabalenka walked onto the court at 11:30 p.m. after Novak Djokovic's four-hour battle with Dino Prizmic.

It should be noted, and Tennis Australia officials made a point, that a back-to-back series of events led to the late start and finish on Thursday.

Two unexpected rain showers occurred early in the afternoon, the first of which delayed play at Rod Laver Arena as no rain was forecast and the roof was open. Iga Swiatek usually breezes through matches like she has to attend a Taylor Swift concert, but her match against Danielle Collins lasted over three hours.

(Robert Prange/Getty Images)

Then Carlos Alcaraz's victory over Lorenzo Sonego lasted almost three and a half hours. With play at Rod Laver not starting until 12pm, compared to 11am at other courses, the long afternoon matches have delayed the start of the evening session at 7pm. Then the first evening match, between Elena Rybakina and Anna Blinkova, lasted almost three hours and included a decisive tiebreak with a final score of 22-20, the longest tiebreak in Grand Slam history.

Medvedev stood in the tunnel for half an hour waiting for it to end. He finally appeared in court around 11:30 p.m. Another, albeit smaller, show court, about 250 yards from Rod Laver, had been available for almost two hours at that point. Four hours and five sets later, Medvedev was in the third round.

On average, two men's and two women's matches at the Australian Open are good for about nine hours of tennis. The action on Rod Laver lasted almost 14 hours on Thursday and Friday morning.

There was even one benefit of the late, late finish that Tennis Australia officials touted in the gloomy light of the day on Friday afternoon. They had checked social media and saw many fans in Europe and the United States, who, given the double-digit time difference, were able to spend part of their workday enjoying Medvedev's triumph.

All it took was for the world number 3 to spend a night.

(Top photo: Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)