{"id":362172,"date":"2024-01-23T19:15:28","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T20:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=362172"},"modified":"2024-01-23T21:02:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T21:02:23","slug":"djokovic-denies-advantage-as-scheduling-rankles-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=362172","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic denies advantage as scheduling rankles star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> has downplayed talk of having an advantage heading into the semi-finals at Melbourne Park<\/a> on Friday\ufeff, after Jannik Sinner's<\/a> late win over Andrey Rublev.<\/p>\n

Tennis Australia opted for a 1pm start to the day session on Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday, an hour later than the rest of the tournament and scheduling again was the talk of the town.<\/p>\n

A competitive quarter-final list pushed\ufeff back the night matches, with Sinner and Rublev starting at 10.45pm.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 Australian Open live and exclusive on Nine,<\/strong><\/em> <\/em>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a> <\/em>and ad-free on<\/strong><\/em> <\/em>Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Coco Gauff and Marta Kostyuk lasted a little over three hours and then Novak Djokovic and Taylor Fritz played for three hours and 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

That delayed the match between Aryna Sabalenka and Barbora Krejcikova by more than two hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters after the match, Djokovic said Sinner's late finish wouldn't be a factor in Friday's semi-finals.<\/p>\n

"What kind of advantage will I have? We have two days. It's not much of an advantage that I see there," he said. "Plenty of time for whoever wins that match tonight to recover. It's not ideal.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Kyrgios admits tennis career 'may be over'<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffREAD MORE:<\/strong> Sinner survives injury scare to reach semi-finals\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Tigers and exiled winger split after $300k payout<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

"Not great for Sinner and Rublev as well. We've seen in the past late finishes and it's great for the tournament and the crowd for a 3am finish or 4am finish. I've been part of some of those. But it's definitely not fun for us.<\/p>\n

"The good thing for the men's quarter-final list is we have two days. That's plenty of time to get a good sleep and recover.<\/p>\n

\"'I'll<\/p>\n

"There are different ways to address this. Maybe scheduling less matches on the centre court or doing it in one session which is most likely not going to happen.<\/p>\n

"Every session holds economical value for them so they're going to try and get as many people to as many sessions as they can."<\/p>\n

The start of the night session was pushed back past 9pm and could have gone very, very late if not for women's champion Sabalenka and Sinner both winning in straight sets.<\/p>\n

"They ask our opinions, what do we think, and if we want to be moved right now," Sabalenka said. "We just told them that: 'Well, let's see how this match goes'.<\/p>\n

"If it's going to be really long, then yeah, maybe it's a good idea to be moved'. So they're not going to finish like (Daniil) Medvedev finish the other night.<\/p>\n

"But yeah, Novak won that set 6-2, and it still was quite early, and we decided to wait for this match."<\/p>\n

\"Novak\u00a0complains\u00a0about\u00a0lights\u00a0being\u00a0too\u00a0bright\"<\/p>\n

Djokovic, meanwhile, has spent more time on court through five rounds than ever at Melbourne Park \u2014 more than 15 hours total this year \u2014 but thinks he's still building into it. He's on a 33-match winning streak at the Australian Open \u2014 a tournament record he shares with his childhood inspiration, Monica Seles.<\/p>\n

The first game took 16 minutes and the first set lasted 1 hour, 24 minutes. Fritz got the first break of serve and maintained it to win the second set.<\/p>\n

"Credit to him for playing really well. You could see that he had a clear game plan. He was really sharp," Djokovic said. "So it was definitely a struggle for me to play the first couple sets.<\/p>\n

"In the third, things started to come together. I wasn't serving well at all first two sets, and then third and fourth, great."<\/p>\n

Fritz saved the first 15 break points he faced, an impressive stat against one of the best returners ever.<\/p>\n

"My conversion was really poor but in the end of the day, I managed to break him when it mattered," Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

Fritz said he felt for Sinner and Rublev, and tournament scheduling had come up in the locker rooms after Medvedev's second-round match didn't start until after 11pm and didn't finish until almost 4am. He said with physio, treatment and wrapping up, it takes hours after the match to get to sleep.<\/p>\n

"It … just screws up your whole clock," Fritz said. "I pray for those guys."<\/p>\n

Sinner said there were advantages to playing late, such as the timing for fans watching the broadcast in Italy.<\/p>\n

"In my mind I knew if I win I have two days off, which even if you potentially finish very late, you can recover," he said. "But in this moment, you don't watch the clock!"<\/p>\n

– with AP\ufeff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic has downplayed talk of having an advantage heading into the semi-finals at Melbourne Park on Friday\ufeff, after Jannik Sinner's late win over Andrey […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":362174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=362172"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362177,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362172\/revisions\/362177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/362174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=362172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=362172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=362172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}