By Erik Gudris | @atntennis | Sunday, January 21, 2024
Elated Aussie fans erupted in a wall of sound as home hero Alex de Minaur squared off against Andrey Rublev for a dramatic fifth set on Rod Laver Arena
A ruthless Rublev battered barriers, silenced fans and unleashed a major celebration of his own.
In a trend that no one wanted to see repeat from last year, many matches in Melbourne in the first week either started late in the evening and/or finished very, very early in the morning.
Former two-time AO champion Victoria Azarenka described the situation best by saying, “If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, what are people looking for? They’re not looking for five-hour matches.” She added, “I haven’t been able to sit through one. It’s just too long.”
Vika is right.
No one, not players, not fans (well, perhaps a few that have nothing better to do than watch tennis all day/night), and no organizers want to see this trend continue.
Don’t get me wrong. Late night or early morning matches had a certain charm a while ago. How many crazy, intense early morning finishes on the legendary Grandstand court at the US Open back in the day do you remember. Certainly other tournaments had their share of exciting matches that stretched past midnight. The problem is that now, these matches are not outliers, they are become more and more often the norm.
Organizers for this year’s Australian Open added an extra day, likely to make money for ticket sales but also to help with the late-night matches issues.
It didn’t help.
Thursday night saw some of the longest night matches in recent memory go down. First was Elena Rybakina and Anna Blinkova’s battle, which featured the longest final set tiebreak in Grand Slam history. That meant Daniil Medvedev and Emil Ruusuvori didn’t get on the court for their match until after 11 pm. That match went the distance – five sets – with Medvedev finally prevailing near 4 am.
It’s late! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Q4mgiLxNhE
— Daniil Medvedev (@DaniilMedwed) January 18, 2024
“What is it, 3:40 in the morning?” Medvedev joked to those who stayed in the crowd afterward, “Honestly, guys, I would not be here. Thanks for staying. If I would be a tennis fan and I would come, I would be at one a.m., ‘Let’s go home, we’re going to catch the end of the match on TV,’ watch thirty minutes and then go to bed.”
Andy Murray, who played a match in Melbourne last year that went beyond 4 a.m. local time, added his comments on the subject this year by…
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