The Australian Open aimed to reduce the late finishes which have plagued the Grand Slam and others without a curfew by adding an extra day to the schedule and extending the tournament and not taking the same stance that normal tournaments have in reformatting scheduling and Daniil Medvedev has paid the price by playing till nearly 4am in an example where it didn’t work.
When Medvedev stepped out to play the final match of the schedule on Rod Laver Arena, he knew that it wasn’t exactly going to be an early finish no matter if he won it in three and it made it worse with him having to produce a comeback to seal it 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6(1), 6-0 to reach the third round against Flying Finn, Emil Ruusuvuori.
Ruusuvuori took the early advantage forcing Medvedev into many unforced error and he took the opening set 6-3. He similarly in the second went 5-3 up but didn’t hold it as Medvedev forced a tie-break albeit this put the Russian to the brink.
A bathroom break was utilised by both and Medvedev took the third to start his resurgence 6-4. But he had to rely on the tie-break to send it into a decider. He took an early 3-0 lead in the last set and bagelled Ruusuvuori to finish the tie off finally as his coach Gilles Cervera looked like the most anxious man on the planet in the stands.
This late finish was due to Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz mainly to start off with who both took three hours to finish their matches and due to a gap in the schedule, Rybakina and Blinkova who had the longest tie-break under the current format in Grand Slam history followed and put Medvedev in a spot of bother when it comes to time. But it has also gone both ways during this tournament with Aryna Sabalenka in particular being forced as defending champion on opening night to play in front of basically no fans as Novak Djokovic was the star attraction and the Belarusian didn’t play till post midnight.
An occurrence that is slightly baffling to believe in this case but one that continues to be an issue for tennis and not only for players but also spectators aiming to see the top stars on the big money ticket.