Early morning finishes have again become the running sore of the Australian Open,despite organisers adding a day to his year’s tournament in an effort to mitigate them.
As top-liners Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev waited until nearly 11pm to play their quarter-final on Tuesday,American Taylor Fritz,who had just lost a four-hour marathon to Novak Djokovic,added his voice to the disgruntled.
The issue has been live since the second round,when it took Daniil Medvedev until 3.40 am to defeat Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori.
“I think it’s rough. I was talking about that to Medvedev … because he finished that one match so late. It just screws up your whole clock,” Fritz said.
“I pray for those guys. If they end up doing that,then they can at least get scheduled at that time for the rest of the tournament. Because if you have to turn around and play in the afternoon in any of the other days,it just completely messes up your sleep schedule.
“Yeah,I mean,it’s not easy to go out in the middle of the day in the heat and play three-out-of-five sets,especially when your body clock isn’t on it.”
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