by Australian Open organizers faced criticism over the scheduling after a lengthy quarter-final match between Novak Djokovic and Taylor Fritz delayed the night session by more than two hours.
Djokovic battled past his American opponent 7-6 (3) 4-6 6-2 6-3 after three hours and 45 minutes, with the match starting later than expected due to Coco’s long serve Gauff with Marta Kostyuk in the opening match of the Day on Rod Laver Arena.
The intention was to extend the tournament to 15 days this year and schedule only two matches in each day’s session to avoid the type of early morning finishes that are becoming more common.
But there are only two days out of 10 so far where play has finished by midnight, with Daniil Medvedev and Emil Ruusuvuori playing until 3.39am in their second round match.
Because of Tuesday’s delay, defending women’s champion Aryna Sabalenka did not start her match, which was due to start at 7pm, until 9.10pm, while Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev did not hit their first balls until after 10.40pm.
Sinner will face Djokovic on Friday after claiming a 6-4 7-6 (5) 6-3 victory at 1.22am.
There was discussion about moving one of the night session matches to another court, but that didn’t happen in the end.
Fritz said: “He writes your whole clock. I pray for those boys. I get it, some days go a long way. Like, today especially, my game was long, the game in front of us was really long.
“But there’s got to be something they can do when people don’t play until 2, 3am, because I don’t think people fully understand how much time we have to spend doing things after we finish playing. If you finish at 2am, there’s no way I’m going to sleep until 5, 6am.”
Wimbledon has a unique 11pm curfew, but the other major slams have no cut-off point, and, with the average length of matches increasing significantly in recent years, that has now become a rarity.
Djokovic said: “We’ve seen some late finishes in the past. And I know for the crowds and the competition in a way it’s kind of exciting to see a 4am finish, a 3am finish. I was a part of some of those. But it’s definitely not fun for us.
“The good thing about the quarter-final in the men’s division is that we have two days. So I think there’s plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep and recover.”
Djokovic will also need time to recover after beating Fritz and the semi-finals in Melbourne for the 11th time.
The world number one has never lost here when he has reached beyond the last eight, and there is no doubt that he wants a 25th grand slam title.
Djokovic had beaten American Fritz in their previous eight meetings but it certainly wasn’t easy. The first game alone lasted 16 minutes and the first set 84 minutes as they worked in the heat.
Fritz, trying to reach a slam semi-final for the first time at the third attempt, brilliantly saved all 15 break points he faced in the opening two sets, and leveled the contest impressively.
It was only his third set win against the Serbian, the other two coming in third round matches here in 2021, when Djokovic suffered an abdominal injury but still managed to win in five sets .
But Djokovic began to turn the screw in the third set as Fritz began to feel his left leg, and consecutive breaks in the fourth put him on the way to a 48th slam semi-final.
Speaking to Nick Kyrgios on court, Djokovic said: “I suffered a lot in the first few sets. Also because of his high quality tennis. It was really kind of suffocating for me from the back of the court.
“It was very difficult to find the right time, it was very hot and the sun was still out. We all know that Taylor has one of the best servers in the world. I knew the kind of threat he poses when he serves at such a high standard.
“The change of breakpoints was really bad but I managed to break it when it mattered. I think I raised my game midway through the third set all the way to the end.”
Fritz was left with mixed feelings, saying: “I played at a very high level for the first two sets, and they were two tough, physical sets. It was like two and a half hours by the time we finished both sets. I have to get to the point where I can do that for five hours.”
Sin is the only player in the men’s final yet to win a set, with the Italian coming from 5-1 down in the second set before winning against Rublev, the first man in the open era to lose his . first 10 grand slam quarterfinals.
Sinner believes he will be able to fully recover before Friday’s game, saying: “It’s obviously late now, by the time I go to bed. But tomorrow I’ll be hitting half an hour, 45 minutes, really late in the day, just touching the ball a little bit.
“Then after, trying to sleep as much as possible, trying to recover. And that’s it. I feel pretty confident that my body will recover in the best possible way.”
