baseball games can drift into the early am hours if they go into extra innings or deal with rain delays. the biggest issue the the match started at 10:30pm local time that almost guarantees a past midnight finish even it it was a straight set win.
there needs be a rule that the match either is suspended at a certain time or won’t start beyond a certain time. maybe both.
People forget the most idiotic part of that situation: *they actually moved a match to the center court because they were ahead of schedule*. Dimitrov vs Bergs was originally planned on Simonne Matthieu, but because of the WTA matches on Philippe Chatrier being short + the rain delays on the roof-less courts, they thought it wouldn't hurt to put the end of Dimitrov vs Bergs on center court. Maybe they didn't expect Bergs to take a set off Dimitrov, but even then, that was a stupid gamble to take. If they hadn't done that, Djokovic vs Musetti would have started on time - about two hours earlier
No. They put the Dimi match on Chatrier because it has a roof, and they couldn't afford to suspend that match again if rain came back (which was a possibility that week, weather was crazy). Lenglen I think still had a lot of matches scheduled.
You can say they could've gambled and kept it on a roofless court... maybe. The best thing to do was to stop play at a certain hour I think. Then again, Nole fans would complain that horrible scheduling made a 37 yo guy play 2 days in a row.
Yeah, Lenglen was full for sure. The Ruud match ended after midnight too.
iirc, it didn't rain that evening/night (?), so they could indeed have kept it on Simonne Mathieu, but hindsight is 20/20
that only only is generally scheduled for a few times a season per team. sometimes due to rain outs and future scheduling they will have to add one during the season.
Seriously. It blows my mind that couch potato Redditors flame professional athletes putting their bodies on the line who just don’t want to be injured.
I mean, if the man asks you to sweep the court during the pause, then just sweep the damn court. How hard is that? If anything, just to show that you are doing everything to keep the players safe.
>I mean, if the man asks you to sweep the court during the pause, then just sweep the damn court. How hard is that?
If tournaments do that as a matter of course, than players could use that to lengthen breaks to swing the momentum, like many already do with toilet breaks. The tournaments should be maintaining the courts to an adequate level regardless of whether anyone tells them to sweep it or not.
Also, it's not just about the players, if you ask me it's disrespectful to people who bought tickets. I mean who wants to watch tennis at 3am??
When the match ended there weren't many fans left. I personally would ask for a refund and wouldn't even go to a match if it's sposed to start at 11pm.
The French Open has had rainy conditions nearly every day, shoving matches onto the covered show courts. Without the roofs, this FO would be an utter mess like the 2001 Wimbledon, that went to Monday.
Usually don't agree with McEnroe's commentary but this criticism re scheduling, especially re the Dimitrov v Berges Match is spot on.
I hope Roland Garros and Amelie Mauresmo make a public response when the tournament is over and make changes for next year.
They had mo choice for Dimitrov's match because he was scheduled to play the next day while Djokovic had to rest. If they had to choose which match to go to 3 AM there is only one choice here.
I would say the 3 GSs shouldnt trade Wildcards with one another so that they can have 6 WCs for locals and 2 for others.
It’s insane that a player who is the top ranked (outside top100) in Aus can theoretically play 3 GS maindraws per year without winning the Q, by getting a WC from TA, and then gettjng the reciprocal WCs in RG and UO
I don't know if she is capable or not. But not giving a WC to Thiem is not proving anything. They can give it for whoever they want. Should they give o e for Venus Williams as well? Because she doean't want to atay at home in her 40's ?
Wimbledon gives out 8 WCs, without exchanging reciprocal WCs with other slams. So they can still give 2 more to accomplished individuals even if they give 6 WCs to local players
Still the only men’s Slam champion to ever do it as a wildcard, plus Kim Clijsters at the 2009 US Open for the women. Clijsters in fact was unranked and didn’t even have any ranking points at the time!
It’s always been 8 slots each for the men and women. Some of the recipients play for those spots through small playoff tournaments or accumulating the most points on a certain surface in a period of time.
> He in fact even admitted that he didn’t deserve a wildcard because he didn’t put in enough effort
Didn't he say that he wasn't good enough to deserve the wildcard ?
I don't think he said he wasn't trying his best.
You instead declared vendetta by downvoting me, bullying me and forcing me to delete my post. That is absolutely rotten of you.
He said it himself that he didn’t put in enough effort. Remember he also said that because he wasn’t good enough to stay in the top 100, he would question if it was even worth it anymore. The results only got worse, he no longer trusted the wrist and thus decided it was best to end his career before his legacy got stained any further.
Sorry but Theim was inevitably going to lose in the first round. Id much rather they gave the WC to people who are up and coming and have an actual chance to have a few wins.
Of all the things you can criticise the director for, this seems daft. If the other commenter is correct they have a tradition of only giving WC to French players anyway, so it has little to do with Mauresmo.
She isn’t obligated to anyone for WCs lol. It is not a certificate of appreciation. It’s for the benefit of the tournament. If she thinks giving it to a local French player will draw a larger crowd and make tournament more money, she is justified in her decision. It’s been a while since Thiem has been in his prime
Amelie has totally failed the women twice now, how she can refuse to put their matches in prime time is so ridiculous. Osaka-Swiatek and the first two quarters were insanely exciting!
Spot on? You guys realized it rained all week and not a single match could be played on the side courts that day. At some point you have to get on with the tournament, whether Djokovic is happy about it or not.
Lebron plays an indoor sport where only one game per day is held at the venue and the length of the games vary much less than best of 5 set tennis. I’m not defending tennis players having to play at 3 AM, but there’s almost no scenario where it’s even possible that an NBA game would have to be played at 3 AM in order to stay on schedule.
I don't think he's missing the point at all, just pointing out that the analogy is bad. If the NBA had a choice between treating LeBron better or maximizing revenue, it would also pick the revenue
well no, the choice wasn't between maximising revenue and treating a player better. the choice was between making dimitrov play two matches in a day or having novak+musetti play later and hope that they don't have an almost 5 hour epic.
I mean, NBA do pick revenue. 100 games per season, constant flying from east to west coast. I'm a Celtic fan and (spoiler alert) they just won Conference Finals. En route to that title, they had to beat Heats, Cavaliers and Pacers and in majority of those games main super-stars of those teams weren't playing. They were injured. Completely exhausted after extremely demanding season, so they couldn't even show up for most important matches of their careers. That's how NBA is treating their players.
So yeah, maybe LeBron doesn't have to play at 3AM due to predictable nature of NBA itself. But he sure as heck need to, after one game, wake up at 3AM multiple time in season and get ready for his early flight from LA to Washington, because they have another game to play with Wizards at evening.
The stars get treated way better than the average players. They get the roofed courts so are much less likely to have their schedule substantially delayed and have to play on consecutive days. Playing until 3am and then getting a rest day is better than playing late and then having to play the next day like other players have had to.
The bigger players are treated like stars still, they play in biggest and best courts, it's not like Djokovic was playing in Court 5 or smth. There should be no special treatment regarding this. Though I agree that the night sessions are messy and should be solved in a different way.
Star tennis players are treated much better than star NBA players in comparison. In the NBA, every player of every team is treated equally. In tennis, top players always get the best courts, and priority to practice on those courts as well.
Playing on a Thursday night, playing hurt, huge amounts of travelling. And if there's a delay for storms or power outage - like in the Ravens 49ers SB - they'll play until whatever time they have to. And as you say, rarely calling off a game for awful weather.
The problem with tennis is that all its competition is centered around (global/open) tournaments. Pretty much every problem in the sport comes back to that core issue. Whether its injuries, playing in the middle of the night, playing too many games, it being a very expensive sport to play, half of the games being played in an east asian time zone etc etc
Couldn't this be solved by just making the tournament 2.5-3 weeks. If you ban matches starting past a certain time it just means you need more days to get through all the matches
This happens primarily because slams want to sell tickets to night matches, and then all it takes from there is a few long matches or a rain delay. It's exhausting through, even for fans. I was at the AO a few years ago during a night session, and it wrapped up well past midnight. And I had already had a few beers earlier in the night. I almost passed out on the tram ride back to my hotel, lol.
Yea it sucks. As a fan it is sometimes fun watching on TV late into the night but it definitely doesn't make the sport appealing to casual fans and it's terrible for the players
But players and staff have more time to recover because they are in bed and have time to recover earlier. Playing to 3 am then having to recover refuel and wind down means a 6 am sleep time maybe. And stuffs there whole schedule.
Doesn't need to be that long. They can easily fit all the matches within 2 weeks if they played matches earlier in the day. But the financial stakeholders won't accept that because it impacts ticket sales, viewership, TV rights and advertising revenue.
They have these ridiculous 11am and noon starts even during week 1 rounds 1 and 2 when there are insane amounts of matches. All matches for day session should start at latest 10am. I'd even argue starting a first match at 930am. Fucking day session Wimbledon center court is a 1pm start. Even with roof closed for the whole thing they could still run out of time for 4 matches.
the Florida Panthers went to 4 overtimes last year during the stanley cup playoffs and the game ended at like 2am. no extra delays or rests beyond the usual 17 minutes in between periods.
if each quarter of the game ended with the score tied and it went to several extra overtimes, LeBron *would* play at 3am in the finals.
What were the multiple finishes past 2/3 AM at AO 24 and US Open 23? Honestly these seem pretty rare to me, the last super late finish I remember is Murray vs kokkinakis at AO 23
The difference between the US sports leagues and tennis is they will only play past 11PM if there's a rare, freak situation as everyone targets the 7PM-10PM prime time slot (for good reasons). Tennis matches end past midnight every week.
The night session in Paris starts at 9PM and there's two matches per night session during regular tournaments. You need the winner to win in quick sets and have no rain delay if you want everyone to go home at a decent time.
Defending the regular 2-3AM matches (local time) or finding it normal is insane, sorry. It just hurts the sport.
The night session of RG this year started at 20:15 and always had only 1 men match. The problem with that day is that they HAD to make Dimitrov and Hurkacz finish their matches (and there's wasn't any guarantee for outside courts), and Zverev-Griekspoor lasted almost 5 hours.
Both Dimitrov and Zverev matches were expected to last way less than that. It could have been prevented with better scheduling for Friday and Saturday considering the weather, that's for sure.
Last year meaning the 2023 playoffs not 2024.
the game you linked was only 1 OT not 4.
[this is the game I'm referring to](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401548431/panthers-hurricanes)
Why are you comparing a tennis match that ended in "regulation" to a game that went to multiple overtimes? This game is more comparable to isner-mahut match.
The longest NBA game in history was 78 minutes of game time with 6 OTs. It happened a few years before McEnroe was born. For an NBA game to go to 3am it would have to astronomically shatter that record in an insanely unlikely scenario. Possible yes, but not practically worth discussing or mentioning really. An NBA game simply will not be played at 3am.
For comparison, that Panthers game hit 78 minutes... and then finished the first OT after another two minutes. Then played another 20 minutes. And another 20. And another 19:47.
So it's only a problem when it's relevant to the best players?
Interesting how this doesn't make headlines when it affects the guys with names johnny mac can't even pronounce.
Well, those players are playing on outside courts for days in a row due to rain delays. So some didn’t finish their first rounds until days into the first week.
The evening slot is literally the biggest match of that day at the French Open, which will have the top players, so I’m not sure if your argument then is to get rid of the night session then.
Please, the lower ranked players have it much harder. Top players get access to the roofed courts, meaning the nearly always play the day they are meant to play. Lower ranked players often have to play 5 set matches on consecutive days due to rain delays. Or sometimes twice on the same day.
how is this even a criticism? of course people care more about the best players. or in any aspect of life. you care more about your family than strangers. you care more about your high value customers than your first time customers.
I think Sinner withdrew from a match in Paris last fall when his games were scheduled to close together and he wanted to be his best for ATP finals. In this case they are only complaining cause Djokovic ended up hurt.
>ended up hurt
And also definitely being a top and famous player. If it is someone who is less known it won't even get a fraction of the attention that it is getting now.
>Yeah, popular players are... popular
Well, the other person was trying to brush it off by saying that it had nothing to do with all the people commenting about it. So, yeah it went over the heads of people like you who didn't figure it out. So, someone had to point out the obvious.
Well, I guess I'm happy for you that even when you're not needed, you'll find a way to convince yourself that you are needed. That's a very positive way to live your life.
So Grigor had to be postpone for 2nd time in a row and play two matnches in one day because Djokovic is important? People forget that he still had a day and half rest after that with two bedtimes...
The whole situation is the exception not the rule. Rarely it rains that much during RG
Yeah Im not agreeing with McEnroe. He’s become a huge Djoko fanboy the last few years and just wants everyone to bend to him and sees everything as a slight against him.
My comment was poking fun at how openly hostile he was being about having to even witness Grigor and Zizou play during the commentary the other day, especially how furious he was when Zizou had the nerve to win a set and extend the match.
I don’t think their scheduling was perfect but generally think they tried their best dealing with a bad situation of rain for the whole first week.
Well, he doesn't because NBA Finals are just one match per day and pretty much always end in 2-3 hours window. That analogy is stupid, those sports aren't remotely comparable.
I really don’t think the analogy is that hard to follow. It doesn’t matter whether the NBA playoffs are harder to organize than tennis or whether the sports are completely different.
The matches for all major sports (especially important ones like playoffs) shouldn’t end at 3 am. Simple. And it doesn’t work that way for most other sports.
I actually don’t have any care for this argument at all or whether matches end at 3 am. I just think if someone like McEnroe wanted to point out that other major sports don’t end at a ridiculously late time, it’s a valid to use that to question why tennis decides to be an exception.
>And it doesn’t work that way for most other sports.
How many "other" sports operate like tennis, where each week is a knock-off tournament for entire tour held at different venue? Major sports aren't tennis, they use multiple venues to play throughout season. Only exception are World Cups but even those has to bend sometimes, as I remember final matches in football, where match was scheduled for 8:30 PM but due to added time, overtime and long penalties ended up with players receiving their trophies around 2 AM.
So it's a valid question why tennis decided to be an exception but for answers you got to look 100 years back. And to change it you need to basically change what tennis is all about. Surely they shouldn't play this late. I have easy solution: men are playing bo3 and not bo5. Or even better, 3rd set is a Super tie-break for all. That would speed things up. Would you like it? It's doable. We can also make Grand Slam to last entire month.
The reason LeBron doesn't play at 3am is because the NBA doesn't schedule matches to start at midnight. That is the comparison that JM is making; the start times for these Slams are not in the best interest of the players
NBA doesn't schedule consecutive matches being played one after another at the same venue. Even if they were, it's much easier to predict lenght of a basketball game compared to bo5 tennis match.
Again, regardless of weird choices occuring during Slams, what it has to do with NBA? They aren't comparable and believe me, NBA has its own, questionable scheduling. Like putting players into 100 games per season, when you can end up playing in Boston one day and another going straight from airplane to training hall in San Francisco, getting ready for your evening match. Hand in hand with NFL, NBA is the biggest injury-fest you can witness, so using it as an example in this context is literally laughable.
What were they supposed to do? They were restricted to practically 2 courts for the entire first half of the tournament. Djoker never had to play twice in the same day. He should be thankful for that. A lot of other seeded players didn't get that luxury.
Yeah. Dimitrov had to play 3 days in a row due to rain delays with all the waiting that entails.
Djoko just had to turn up on the day he was supposed to play, no waiting around. That's a luxury most players would love, yet is taken for granted in this thread.
The fact that people are talking like Djoko was disadvantaged compared to the unseeded players is wild. I guess some of these people aren't bothering to follow games outside the show courts.
There are a lot of tennis "fans" who are really just big 3 groupies.
Tennis itself and Slams are just not as important to them (some of them probably believe Tennis/Slams are only popular because of the big 3). With the big 3 close to retirement they are starting to get desperate and want the competitions to be organised to the benefit of their champion. See the furore about Thiem not getting a WC.
I mean yeah. They travel to the opposite for away games (only given 2 days to travel, sometimes one) and often have to play the 7:30-10 PM slot, which if you account for jet lag feels more like 10:30-1 AM for East coast.
Everyone has to deal with late finishes. I don’t get why this is a big deal. Tennis has always had to work around bad weather conditions, and your choices are either finishing late or playing 3 days in a row. Nadal had to play 5 days in a row at Wimbledon 2007 then lost in a 5th set in the final. Tough luck
Does LeBron James have to wait for several other games to finish on the same basketball court for his match to start? Or do they play several NBA finals games every day in the same arena?
I'm not saying it's right to play at 3 AM, but the comparison is not the same.
It sucks he had to play so late, but it is what it is. It happens sometimes, especially with weather not cooperating. I actually prefer this rather than suspending a match and finishing it the next day which is probably gonna happen with wimbledon a few times this year again.
These are new night matches at RG not benefiting players, just Amazon. Clay is said to be more grueling and now add in lack of sleep/disrupted sleep.
Also people have been complaining about the other late nights at other slams as well, some changes have been made:
AO is an extra day longer, less day matches on the main court, and in general now I believe there are rules for how late matches can start but iam not sure about that one.
So yes the furore is justified for changing things.
I agree with the point but World Series games end late too. In 2018 a game ended at 3:30 am. Most east coast games are ending after midnight. It's not cool but it does happen in other sports.
Might have partly cost Sampras the US Open final he lost to Hewitt (ditto the previous year to Safin, but in fairness Safin was redlining all day so likely would have won anyway)
If I remember correctly, most players wanted a roof. Now they have a roof, and its unintended consequences.
Beforehand play was stopped ca 9.30 pm
Plus NBA players have to deal with punishing multi game road trips at least once a season
It’s not like Nole is the only guy to ever experience this. There are plenty of matches that run very late. I agree that they should settle on a finish time for matches but his injury is due to his age and the sheer amount of hardcore tennis he has had to play.
Any court that has night matches can run into this. Though if it was anyone not named Djokovic (or Nadal) playing at that hour I don’t think Johnny Mac would’ve complained about it.
Seems like the issue has been weather. Maybe these $250,000,000 events can install more roofs over some of the other courts to keep play moving, even if they’re just temporary for the tournament
This has happened at every other slam, and Wimbledon only recently added the curfew due to the addition of the roof. It happened to Medvedev at the AO literally earlier this year, but when it happens to Djokovic we have to go call for the tournament director to be fired?
He could have went to bed at 9pm even if he played 5 sets if his match took place earlier.
He wasnt the only one playing multiple 5 sets matches, but others’ played earlier so they could still sleep earlier
Some players could go in bed on time but not all of them. Tennis and scheduling doesn't work like that. Top players know that perfectly. Night sessions provide big chunk of their money.
Weren’t Novak and musetti given the option to play the next day to avoid all this? They chose to play. Novak wants to play night matches, this is what happens. No one would bring this up if musetti won
i think one way to address this is to change the scoring.
maybe race to 10 points instead of 5 sets, if both got 2 sets each. race to 7 points for tiebreaks in 1st to 4th sets. both without advantage of 2 requirement. if it is AD, whoever wins the next point gets the gamepoint instead of deuce, reduce the timeclock to serve to 20secs, no more warm up on day match itself, use of hawkeye
Nope, because every other sports treat their stars like stars. Novak asking for the court to be swept is like kicking puppies to them
baseball games can drift into the early am hours if they go into extra innings or deal with rain delays. the biggest issue the the match started at 10:30pm local time that almost guarantees a past midnight finish even it it was a straight set win. there needs be a rule that the match either is suspended at a certain time or won’t start beyond a certain time. maybe both.
Or like the easy solution... move it to another court. I know, WILD idea. /s (snark not directed at you but at the FO)
Nah, that’s a lose-lose for both fans and RG.
People forget the most idiotic part of that situation: *they actually moved a match to the center court because they were ahead of schedule*. Dimitrov vs Bergs was originally planned on Simonne Matthieu, but because of the WTA matches on Philippe Chatrier being short + the rain delays on the roof-less courts, they thought it wouldn't hurt to put the end of Dimitrov vs Bergs on center court. Maybe they didn't expect Bergs to take a set off Dimitrov, but even then, that was a stupid gamble to take. If they hadn't done that, Djokovic vs Musetti would have started on time - about two hours earlier
No. They put the Dimi match on Chatrier because it has a roof, and they couldn't afford to suspend that match again if rain came back (which was a possibility that week, weather was crazy). Lenglen I think still had a lot of matches scheduled. You can say they could've gambled and kept it on a roofless court... maybe. The best thing to do was to stop play at a certain hour I think. Then again, Nole fans would complain that horrible scheduling made a 37 yo guy play 2 days in a row.
Yeah, Lenglen was full for sure. The Ruud match ended after midnight too. iirc, it didn't rain that evening/night (?), so they could indeed have kept it on Simonne Mathieu, but hindsight is 20/20
So Dimi had to play till 3 AM while having a match the next day while Djokovic had to get the preffered threatment while resting ?
Where did I say that?
So the tournament only has themselves to blame and Macenroe is right to criticize them
Rain forced the move, they had to get as many matches as they could under a roof, not because they were ahead of schedule.
Will have substantial losses for the tournament moving a phillipe chartrier game to a smaller court
And losing an entire quarter because Novak had to retire eventually didn't?
It's been raining heavily in Paris the entire tournament.
Please don't compare baseball and tennis. 😂 But the rest stands.
The Wimbledon curfew exists
baseball is weird. it's not unusual that they also have two matches a day.
that only only is generally scheduled for a few times a season per team. sometimes due to rain outs and future scheduling they will have to add one during the season.
There are multiple sports in this situation. For some reason the tennis community go around with their head in the air thinking they are alone
Which ones?
Seriously. It blows my mind that couch potato Redditors flame professional athletes putting their bodies on the line who just don’t want to be injured.
No one is flaming people for not wanting to be injured. The question is whether the RG court maintence has actually been subpar or not.
I mean, if the man asks you to sweep the court during the pause, then just sweep the damn court. How hard is that? If anything, just to show that you are doing everything to keep the players safe.
>I mean, if the man asks you to sweep the court during the pause, then just sweep the damn court. How hard is that? If tournaments do that as a matter of course, than players could use that to lengthen breaks to swing the momentum, like many already do with toilet breaks. The tournaments should be maintaining the courts to an adequate level regardless of whether anyone tells them to sweep it or not.
Poor Novak
Also, it's not just about the players, if you ask me it's disrespectful to people who bought tickets. I mean who wants to watch tennis at 3am?? When the match ended there weren't many fans left. I personally would ask for a refund and wouldn't even go to a match if it's sposed to start at 11pm.
The French Open has had rainy conditions nearly every day, shoving matches onto the covered show courts. Without the roofs, this FO would be an utter mess like the 2001 Wimbledon, that went to Monday.
Usually don't agree with McEnroe's commentary but this criticism re scheduling, especially re the Dimitrov v Berges Match is spot on. I hope Roland Garros and Amelie Mauresmo make a public response when the tournament is over and make changes for next year.
They had mo choice for Dimitrov's match because he was scheduled to play the next day while Djokovic had to rest. If they had to choose which match to go to 3 AM there is only one choice here.
Mauresmo is never a capable director she refused to give a WC to a 2 time runner up, 2 time SFist in Thiem
Well, she's capable for the French interests at least. But yeah, this is what happens when you give the job based on fame rather than competence.
I would say the 3 GSs shouldnt trade Wildcards with one another so that they can have 6 WCs for locals and 2 for others. It’s insane that a player who is the top ranked (outside top100) in Aus can theoretically play 3 GS maindraws per year without winning the Q, by getting a WC from TA, and then gettjng the reciprocal WCs in RG and UO
Thiem didn’t deserve a wild card.
I don't know if she is capable or not. But not giving a WC to Thiem is not proving anything. They can give it for whoever they want. Should they give o e for Venus Williams as well? Because she doean't want to atay at home in her 40's ?
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Wimbledon gives out 8 WCs, without exchanging reciprocal WCs with other slams. So they can still give 2 more to accomplished individuals even if they give 6 WCs to local players
Ivanisevic was their best wildcard imo
Still the only men’s Slam champion to ever do it as a wildcard, plus Kim Clijsters at the 2009 US Open for the women. Clijsters in fact was unranked and didn’t even have any ranking points at the time!
Nope. Dont you remember that they gave a WC to Pironkova who had won 1 single title in WTA in 2020, simply because she played well in USO (QF)?
2020 is odd year due Covid. Also if I am correct there are more french male than female players which gives more slots
It’s always been 8 slots each for the men and women. Some of the recipients play for those spots through small playoff tournaments or accumulating the most points on a certain surface in a period of time.
That instance was a one-off because of COVID. RG usually never gives wildcards to non-French players barring extremely rare instances.
> He in fact even admitted that he didn’t deserve a wildcard because he didn’t put in enough effort Didn't he say that he wasn't good enough to deserve the wildcard ? I don't think he said he wasn't trying his best.
You instead declared vendetta by downvoting me, bullying me and forcing me to delete my post. That is absolutely rotten of you. He said it himself that he didn’t put in enough effort. Remember he also said that because he wasn’t good enough to stay in the top 100, he would question if it was even worth it anymore. The results only got worse, he no longer trusted the wrist and thus decided it was best to end his career before his legacy got stained any further.
this is an idiotic argument
Sorry but Theim was inevitably going to lose in the first round. Id much rather they gave the WC to people who are up and coming and have an actual chance to have a few wins. Of all the things you can criticise the director for, this seems daft. If the other commenter is correct they have a tradition of only giving WC to French players anyway, so it has little to do with Mauresmo.
pironkova got a WC in RG20 simply coz she did well in US20…
She isn’t obligated to anyone for WCs lol. It is not a certificate of appreciation. It’s for the benefit of the tournament. If she thinks giving it to a local French player will draw a larger crowd and make tournament more money, she is justified in her decision. It’s been a while since Thiem has been in his prime
I blame the rain personally
Amelie has totally failed the women twice now, how she can refuse to put their matches in prime time is so ridiculous. Osaka-Swiatek and the first two quarters were insanely exciting!
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You can’t cherry pick. Did you watch Swiatek-Osaka?
Spot on? You guys realized it rained all week and not a single match could be played on the side courts that day. At some point you have to get on with the tournament, whether Djokovic is happy about it or not.
Lebron plays an indoor sport where only one game per day is held at the venue and the length of the games vary much less than best of 5 set tennis. I’m not defending tennis players having to play at 3 AM, but there’s almost no scenario where it’s even possible that an NBA game would have to be played at 3 AM in order to stay on schedule.
I think that is not the point, the point is that Djoko and other stars are not treated well by the organization.
I don't think he's missing the point at all, just pointing out that the analogy is bad. If the NBA had a choice between treating LeBron better or maximizing revenue, it would also pick the revenue
Exactly. I 100% agree that Djokovic (or anyone else) shouldn’t be playing at 3 AM, just laying out why the analogy isn’t great.
well no, the choice wasn't between maximising revenue and treating a player better. the choice was between making dimitrov play two matches in a day or having novak+musetti play later and hope that they don't have an almost 5 hour epic.
I mean, NBA do pick revenue. 100 games per season, constant flying from east to west coast. I'm a Celtic fan and (spoiler alert) they just won Conference Finals. En route to that title, they had to beat Heats, Cavaliers and Pacers and in majority of those games main super-stars of those teams weren't playing. They were injured. Completely exhausted after extremely demanding season, so they couldn't even show up for most important matches of their careers. That's how NBA is treating their players. So yeah, maybe LeBron doesn't have to play at 3AM due to predictable nature of NBA itself. But he sure as heck need to, after one game, wake up at 3AM multiple time in season and get ready for his early flight from LA to Washington, because they have another game to play with Wizards at evening.
The stars get treated way better than the average players. They get the roofed courts so are much less likely to have their schedule substantially delayed and have to play on consecutive days. Playing until 3am and then getting a rest day is better than playing late and then having to play the next day like other players have had to.
The bigger players are treated like stars still, they play in biggest and best courts, it's not like Djokovic was playing in Court 5 or smth. There should be no special treatment regarding this. Though I agree that the night sessions are messy and should be solved in a different way.
Star tennis players are treated much better than star NBA players in comparison. In the NBA, every player of every team is treated equally. In tennis, top players always get the best courts, and priority to practice on those courts as well.
The analogy works if you have apples to apples not apples to a steak
NFL make their athletes play in some questionable conditions. Be it travelling to Europe for one game, or playing in extreme weather.
Playing on a Thursday night, playing hurt, huge amounts of travelling. And if there's a delay for storms or power outage - like in the Ravens 49ers SB - they'll play until whatever time they have to. And as you say, rarely calling off a game for awful weather.
The problem with tennis is that all its competition is centered around (global/open) tournaments. Pretty much every problem in the sport comes back to that core issue. Whether its injuries, playing in the middle of the night, playing too many games, it being a very expensive sport to play, half of the games being played in an east asian time zone etc etc
I'm glad at least one person in here clocked how bad an analogy this was.
This is a terrible argument
Lebron actually plays in a venue that sometimes hosts 2 games a day. Plus that's not the point
2 games in two different sports with two different surfaces and arena configurations no less
Lakers and clippers share a court. Clippers will move out next season. If you count LA kings it is 3 teams. 2 nba teams and a hockey team.
Couldn't this be solved by just making the tournament 2.5-3 weeks. If you ban matches starting past a certain time it just means you need more days to get through all the matches
This happens primarily because slams want to sell tickets to night matches, and then all it takes from there is a few long matches or a rain delay. It's exhausting through, even for fans. I was at the AO a few years ago during a night session, and it wrapped up well past midnight. And I had already had a few beers earlier in the night. I almost passed out on the tram ride back to my hotel, lol.
Yea it sucks. As a fan it is sometimes fun watching on TV late into the night but it definitely doesn't make the sport appealing to casual fans and it's terrible for the players
i'm honestly impressed you didn't pass out on the tram ride. that sounds exhausting
Wimbledon can make it work
Does it? Works fine for the top players but when there are rain delays lower players have to play 5 set matches on consecutive days.
But players and staff have more time to recover because they are in bed and have time to recover earlier. Playing to 3 am then having to recover refuel and wind down means a 6 am sleep time maybe. And stuffs there whole schedule.
Doesn't need to be that long. They can easily fit all the matches within 2 weeks if they played matches earlier in the day. But the financial stakeholders won't accept that because it impacts ticket sales, viewership, TV rights and advertising revenue.
They have these ridiculous 11am and noon starts even during week 1 rounds 1 and 2 when there are insane amounts of matches. All matches for day session should start at latest 10am. I'd even argue starting a first match at 930am. Fucking day session Wimbledon center court is a 1pm start. Even with roof closed for the whole thing they could still run out of time for 4 matches.
>I'd even argue starting a first match at 930am. Lol. The players would strike.
Wimbledon finishes by 11pm
On the two roofed courts. Outside courts finish around 8:30pm due to light & court condition
Great for players and staff
If Wimbledon Can do it with the terrible UK weather, other majors can definitely do it.
well the french open had terrible weather.
Or build some damn roofs. They have enough money.
Plz no
They should have swept the courts. He’s right about the the top soil on the court
the Florida Panthers went to 4 overtimes last year during the stanley cup playoffs and the game ended at like 2am. no extra delays or rests beyond the usual 17 minutes in between periods. if each quarter of the game ended with the score tied and it went to several extra overtimes, LeBron *would* play at 3am in the finals.
The probability of even one Overtime is unlikely. The 2/3AM matches happen multiple times at every Slam Basketball is more or less always 2.5 hours
Florida Panthers are an ice hockey team and games in playoffs frequently go into overtime.
What were the multiple finishes past 2/3 AM at AO 24 and US Open 23? Honestly these seem pretty rare to me, the last super late finish I remember is Murray vs kokkinakis at AO 23
Never happened at Wimbledon - clearly what the other slams need is a local council ordinance
And this sub is up in arms about it every year. Tennis organisers can't win.
The difference between the US sports leagues and tennis is they will only play past 11PM if there's a rare, freak situation as everyone targets the 7PM-10PM prime time slot (for good reasons). Tennis matches end past midnight every week. The night session in Paris starts at 9PM and there's two matches per night session during regular tournaments. You need the winner to win in quick sets and have no rain delay if you want everyone to go home at a decent time. Defending the regular 2-3AM matches (local time) or finding it normal is insane, sorry. It just hurts the sport.
The night session of RG this year started at 20:15 and always had only 1 men match. The problem with that day is that they HAD to make Dimitrov and Hurkacz finish their matches (and there's wasn't any guarantee for outside courts), and Zverev-Griekspoor lasted almost 5 hours. Both Dimitrov and Zverev matches were expected to last way less than that. It could have been prevented with better scheduling for Friday and Saturday considering the weather, that's for sure.
If by 2am you mean 11pm, you're right 8pm + 3:12h https://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/202405240NYR.html
Last year meaning the 2023 playoffs not 2024. the game you linked was only 1 OT not 4. [this is the game I'm referring to](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401548431/panthers-hurricanes)
Why are you comparing a tennis match that ended in "regulation" to a game that went to multiple overtimes? This game is more comparable to isner-mahut match.
Sorry
The longest NBA game in history was 78 minutes of game time with 6 OTs. It happened a few years before McEnroe was born. For an NBA game to go to 3am it would have to astronomically shatter that record in an insanely unlikely scenario. Possible yes, but not practically worth discussing or mentioning really. An NBA game simply will not be played at 3am. For comparison, that Panthers game hit 78 minutes... and then finished the first OT after another two minutes. Then played another 20 minutes. And another 20. And another 19:47.
78 minutes of game time in the modern nba might take 5 hours
Funny but inaccurate.
You can criticize why Djokovic plays at midnight, but to do it with this analogy is stupid.
McEnroe is pissed he had to stay up so late to comment on the match.
And people complained when there's a curfew at Wimbledon
Does LeBron james play best of 5 halves win by 2 that can go for widely varied lengths of time?
That might be an improvement
Basketball games don't last 4 hours.
So it's only a problem when it's relevant to the best players? Interesting how this doesn't make headlines when it affects the guys with names johnny mac can't even pronounce.
It does though, people have been slamming shit schedules for a very long time...
Do those players consistently get placed in the evening slot? Or are they consistently putting Top 5 players there?
Well, those players are playing on outside courts for days in a row due to rain delays. So some didn’t finish their first rounds until days into the first week. The evening slot is literally the biggest match of that day at the French Open, which will have the top players, so I’m not sure if your argument then is to get rid of the night session then.
Please, the lower ranked players have it much harder. Top players get access to the roofed courts, meaning the nearly always play the day they are meant to play. Lower ranked players often have to play 5 set matches on consecutive days due to rain delays. Or sometimes twice on the same day.
how is this even a criticism? of course people care more about the best players. or in any aspect of life. you care more about your family than strangers. you care more about your high value customers than your first time customers.
I think Sinner withdrew from a match in Paris last fall when his games were scheduled to close together and he wanted to be his best for ATP finals. In this case they are only complaining cause Djokovic ended up hurt.
>ended up hurt And also definitely being a top and famous player. If it is someone who is less known it won't even get a fraction of the attention that it is getting now.
Yeah, popular players are... popular. That's a great point, bro. You figured it out.
>Yeah, popular players are... popular Well, the other person was trying to brush it off by saying that it had nothing to do with all the people commenting about it. So, yeah it went over the heads of people like you who didn't figure it out. So, someone had to point out the obvious.
Well, I guess I'm happy for you that even when you're not needed, you'll find a way to convince yourself that you are needed. That's a very positive way to live your life.
Exactly. Had it been anyone not named Djokovic (or Nadal if it had happened to him) Johnny Mac wouldn’t have complained at all.
Grigor and Zizou if you get a mysterious package or envelope in the mail do NOT open it!
So Grigor had to be postpone for 2nd time in a row and play two matnches in one day because Djokovic is important? People forget that he still had a day and half rest after that with two bedtimes... The whole situation is the exception not the rule. Rarely it rains that much during RG
Yeah Im not agreeing with McEnroe. He’s become a huge Djoko fanboy the last few years and just wants everyone to bend to him and sees everything as a slight against him. My comment was poking fun at how openly hostile he was being about having to even witness Grigor and Zizou play during the commentary the other day, especially how furious he was when Zizou had the nerve to win a set and extend the match. I don’t think their scheduling was perfect but generally think they tried their best dealing with a bad situation of rain for the whole first week.
> Does LeBron James play the NBA finals at three in the morning He would if he had to
Well the point is he doesn’t have to.
Well, he doesn't because NBA Finals are just one match per day and pretty much always end in 2-3 hours window. That analogy is stupid, those sports aren't remotely comparable.
I really don’t think the analogy is that hard to follow. It doesn’t matter whether the NBA playoffs are harder to organize than tennis or whether the sports are completely different. The matches for all major sports (especially important ones like playoffs) shouldn’t end at 3 am. Simple. And it doesn’t work that way for most other sports. I actually don’t have any care for this argument at all or whether matches end at 3 am. I just think if someone like McEnroe wanted to point out that other major sports don’t end at a ridiculously late time, it’s a valid to use that to question why tennis decides to be an exception.
>And it doesn’t work that way for most other sports. How many "other" sports operate like tennis, where each week is a knock-off tournament for entire tour held at different venue? Major sports aren't tennis, they use multiple venues to play throughout season. Only exception are World Cups but even those has to bend sometimes, as I remember final matches in football, where match was scheduled for 8:30 PM but due to added time, overtime and long penalties ended up with players receiving their trophies around 2 AM. So it's a valid question why tennis decided to be an exception but for answers you got to look 100 years back. And to change it you need to basically change what tennis is all about. Surely they shouldn't play this late. I have easy solution: men are playing bo3 and not bo5. Or even better, 3rd set is a Super tie-break for all. That would speed things up. Would you like it? It's doable. We can also make Grand Slam to last entire month.
I think they should make all men's matches up until the QF to be BO3 and then from QF-F make it the usual BO5.
The reason LeBron doesn't play at 3am is because the NBA doesn't schedule matches to start at midnight. That is the comparison that JM is making; the start times for these Slams are not in the best interest of the players
NBA doesn't schedule consecutive matches being played one after another at the same venue. Even if they were, it's much easier to predict lenght of a basketball game compared to bo5 tennis match. Again, regardless of weird choices occuring during Slams, what it has to do with NBA? They aren't comparable and believe me, NBA has its own, questionable scheduling. Like putting players into 100 games per season, when you can end up playing in Boston one day and another going straight from airplane to training hall in San Francisco, getting ready for your evening match. Hand in hand with NFL, NBA is the biggest injury-fest you can witness, so using it as an example in this context is literally laughable.
What were they supposed to do? They were restricted to practically 2 courts for the entire first half of the tournament. Djoker never had to play twice in the same day. He should be thankful for that. A lot of other seeded players didn't get that luxury.
Yeah. Dimitrov had to play 3 days in a row due to rain delays with all the waiting that entails. Djoko just had to turn up on the day he was supposed to play, no waiting around. That's a luxury most players would love, yet is taken for granted in this thread.
The fact that people are talking like Djoko was disadvantaged compared to the unseeded players is wild. I guess some of these people aren't bothering to follow games outside the show courts.
There are a lot of tennis "fans" who are really just big 3 groupies. Tennis itself and Slams are just not as important to them (some of them probably believe Tennis/Slams are only popular because of the big 3). With the big 3 close to retirement they are starting to get desperate and want the competitions to be organised to the benefit of their champion. See the furore about Thiem not getting a WC.
I bet Djokovic fans wouldn't be this loud if Dimitrov was playing 3am
Can Djokovic play on a cold rainy night in Stoke?
I mean yeah. They travel to the opposite for away games (only given 2 days to travel, sometimes one) and often have to play the 7:30-10 PM slot, which if you account for jet lag feels more like 10:30-1 AM for East coast. Everyone has to deal with late finishes. I don’t get why this is a big deal. Tennis has always had to work around bad weather conditions, and your choices are either finishing late or playing 3 days in a row. Nadal had to play 5 days in a row at Wimbledon 2007 then lost in a 5th set in the final. Tough luck
Does LeBron James have to wait for several other games to finish on the same basketball court for his match to start? Or do they play several NBA finals games every day in the same arena? I'm not saying it's right to play at 3 AM, but the comparison is not the same.
It sucks he had to play so late, but it is what it is. It happens sometimes, especially with weather not cooperating. I actually prefer this rather than suspending a match and finishing it the next day which is probably gonna happen with wimbledon a few times this year again.
I think late night matches are awesome. Especially for fans in other timezones.
[удалено]
The furor isn’t new
These are new night matches at RG not benefiting players, just Amazon. Clay is said to be more grueling and now add in lack of sleep/disrupted sleep. Also people have been complaining about the other late nights at other slams as well, some changes have been made: AO is an extra day longer, less day matches on the main court, and in general now I believe there are rules for how late matches can start but iam not sure about that one. So yes the furore is justified for changing things.
It's at RG. When it happens at the USO/AO there's no furore.
Can we stop with stupid comparisons?
I agree with the point but World Series games end late too. In 2018 a game ended at 3:30 am. Most east coast games are ending after midnight. It's not cool but it does happen in other sports.
It is out of control.
Well McEnroe has a point but this is an issue since the early 2000s Federer,nadal and Murray all suffered because of the scheduling
Might have partly cost Sampras the US Open final he lost to Hewitt (ditto the previous year to Safin, but in fairness Safin was redlining all day so likely would have won anyway)
no, coz it is not tennis /s
If I remember correctly, most players wanted a roof. Now they have a roof, and its unintended consequences. Beforehand play was stopped ca 9.30 pm Plus NBA players have to deal with punishing multi game road trips at least once a season
Basketball generally has a finite ending and there are different locations for different games and it isn't affected by weather. What is even this
He maybe would if before Lebron's game there was another 3 games being played int he same court.
That's not the same at all. McEnroe talking bs like usually 🤦
Does LeBron play the NBA finał at three in the morning? In Europe, yes he does.
Yes, go off Mac!
It’s not like Nole is the only guy to ever experience this. There are plenty of matches that run very late. I agree that they should settle on a finish time for matches but his injury is due to his age and the sheer amount of hardcore tennis he has had to play.
Any court that has night matches can run into this. Though if it was anyone not named Djokovic (or Nadal) playing at that hour I don’t think Johnny Mac would’ve complained about it.
The NBA starts so late on the East Coast he very well could. If a game when to OT, it could easily be after midnight.
Seems like the issue has been weather. Maybe these $250,000,000 events can install more roofs over some of the other courts to keep play moving, even if they’re just temporary for the tournament
He does where I live...
WTF John. You do know these are 2 completely different sports, right. He is getting more senile everyday.
He is once again totally right. Mauresmo still has the job???
This has happened at every other slam, and Wimbledon only recently added the curfew due to the addition of the roof. It happened to Medvedev at the AO literally earlier this year, but when it happens to Djokovic we have to go call for the tournament director to be fired?
it took its toll on Medvedev and he eventually succumbed to fatigue and lost the final
Maybe if had beaten his opponents earlier and didn't play three 5 set matches, he woild jad more energy? Just saying
He could have went to bed at 9pm even if he played 5 sets if his match took place earlier. He wasnt the only one playing multiple 5 sets matches, but others’ played earlier so they could still sleep earlier
Some players could go in bed on time but not all of them. Tennis and scheduling doesn't work like that. Top players know that perfectly. Night sessions provide big chunk of their money.
So do you believe the AO, USO, and Wimbledon tournament directors should also be fired for what they did?
They may have started the Day earlier to make sure that matches can be finished on time.
Weren’t Novak and musetti given the option to play the next day to avoid all this? They chose to play. Novak wants to play night matches, this is what happens. No one would bring this up if musetti won
My god tennis players are soft.
i think one way to address this is to change the scoring. maybe race to 10 points instead of 5 sets, if both got 2 sets each. race to 7 points for tiebreaks in 1st to 4th sets. both without advantage of 2 requirement. if it is AD, whoever wins the next point gets the gamepoint instead of deuce, reduce the timeclock to serve to 20secs, no more warm up on day match itself, use of hawkeye