Carlos Alcaraz seems to have found his mojo in this French Open, after coming off of an arm injury. After his win against Felix Auger-Aliassime, Alcaraz was questioned at the post-match interview, whether he watched the stunning 5-setter between Novak Djokovic and Lorenzo Musetti. Unfortunately, there was another belter of a match going on at the same time. Alcaraz had to juggle between both.
The Spaniard convincingly won his fourth-round match against Auger-Aliassime, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. A day before that, Djokovic won a thrilling match which finished at 3 AM local time.
But the timing of the match clashed with the UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. Alcaraz, a Spanish native and a lifelong fan of Real Madrid, was never going to miss the soccer match and watches their contests from start to finish.
So when he saw that Novak Djokovic was making a comeback after being 2 sets to 1 down against Musetti, the World No.3 uncharacteristically switched back and forth between both channels to catch both the matches almost simultaneously. In the post-match interaction of his, Alcaraz was asked about the same and here is what he replied –
Interviewer: “You’re a massive football (soccer) fan, and you post one picture with 15 cups…But another thing happened yesterday night on this court – Novak played an absolute incredible match against Lorenzo.
“I wonder, how was your night? Who did you watch the most? The football? The tennis? A little bit of both?”
Carlos Alcaraz: “I was watching both. In the biggest screen I was watching the football, but in the end I was watching Novak’s game.”
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Before going on further about how he managed to do that, Alcaraz subtly raised a complaint that many tennis players have had issues with – the late timings of matches. Novak Djokovic’s match against Lorenzo Musetti was one occasion where the World No.1 bounced back from 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 2-6 to win the match. Djokovic took the match by the scruff of its neck and won the final two sets 6-3, 6-0.
The Djokovic vs Musetti match started at 10:37 pm instead of 8:15 pm local time. The Real Madrid vs Borussia Dortmund match too started at around 8 pm in Wembley, London (which is 9 PM local time in France).
Alcaraz continued, “It started too late, I’m not gonna lie. I watched the first set until the 4-1 in the second set and then I had to have rest. I had to go to sleep.”
As Carlos Alcaraz opted to prioritize rest and pretty much get the best of both worlds, tennis administrators have once again been slammed by players for poor scheduling. The 2023 US Open women’s singles champion, Coco Gauff led the way from the WTA Tour.
Carlos Alcaraz and Others Speak Out Against the French Open for Its Absurd Timings
While the ATP and WTA Tours are religiously following the rule set of not scheduling any match post 11 PM local time, the 4 Grand Slams surprisingly do not have such a measure in place. Novak Djokovic himself admitted that it’s not healthy to play so late in the night. But his ecstasy and excitement post-winning got the better of him.
“I think some things could have been handled a different way, but there’s also a beauty in winning a match [so late],” said Djokovic at the post-match interview.
Djokovic had also made it clear that he didn’t want to get into any match-scheduling discussion after his win. But other players like Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek, and Casper Ruud also complained about the same.
Coco Gauff told ESPN, “I definitely think it’s not healthy. It may be not fair for those who have to play late because it does ruin your schedule. I’ve been lucky I haven’t been put in a super-late finish yet.”
Iga Swiatek too said, “It’s not easy to play, and then it’s not like we’re going to fall asleep one hour after the match.”
Casper Ruud has used this premise to claim publicly that tennis is the toughest sport in the world. However, this is not a compliment but more like a wake up call for administrators, who must reconsider the timings part.
Can tennis be considered one of the toughest sports in the world?
What others sports make you play/compete/perform for 4+ hours at 3 am?— Casper Ruud (@CasperRuud98) June 2, 2024
The French Open has been affected a lot this year by rain delays as well. It made Daniil Medvedev of Russia one of those rare players to have finished late in the night in 2 Grand Slams in a particular calendar year. At the Australian Open 2024, one of his matches finished at around 4 AM local time in Melbourne.
It will be interesting to see which other remaining matches could face this issue as it plays a huge role in determining TRPs as well, especially in different zones.
