Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Australian tennis star Daria Kasatkina has called for the introduction of a starting curfew as New York’s late-night matches threaten to reduce the US Open to the grand slam that never sleeps.
After enduring a different kind of scheduling dilemma, Kasatkina said Venus Williams had every right to question why her first-round battle with former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin began at 12.13 in the morning.
“That was crazy,” Kasatkina told AAP at Flushing Meadows.
“In the WTA we have this rule, not later than 11 you have to step on court.
“But still there are always exceptions for, let’s say, Mexico or the places where they say culturally you have to do it by their rules or whatever.
“So we have this rule, but practically it’s not always in place, let’s say.”
Wimbledon is the only grand slam that has a curfew, the local council insisting matches finish by 11pm so not to disturb neighbouring residents.
“I don’t think there should be a match starting (at) midnight. Not even 11pm, to be honest,” Kasatkina said.
“That’s already crazy, not just for the tennis players, also for the fans, for you guys. Everyone who is involved in this is getting affected by this, and that’s crazy.
“They say they’re doing this for the viewers, but the viewers just turned off the TV and went to sleep and all of us, we have to like figure out our schedules and stuff. I don’t understand.
“Probably from the business perspective, it’s working very, very good and that’s why they’re doing this. Obviously for us, it’s not the best bet.”
While the US Open does not even hold the record for the latest-finishing match in grand slam history, which belongs to Lleyton Hewitt’s epic 4.34am fourth-round victory over Marcos Baghdatis at the 2008 Australian Open, tennis titans Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner slugged it out in NYC until almost 3am in 2022.
Australian Samantha Stosur featured in a series of midnight epics en route to the 2011 title at Flushing Meadows.
But Kasatkina would like to see rules changed after experiencing her own wild encounter against Paul Badosa that started on Tuesday night and finished on Wednesday afternoon following a series of lengthy rain delays.
“We’re in a crazy sport. I don’t think there is any other sport where this could have happened,” Kasatkina said.
“I actually realised that we spent like 12 hours on site, even more, because we arrived on site about 9am, our match got cancelled at like 10.30pm.
“I cooled down, had the food and shower and stuff and was in the hotel by midnight. It was a bit crazy with the two rain delays.”
Kasatkina would have preferred to have finished her match on Wednesday night.
“But we don’t have much of a choice there because there was still the first match of the night session on both of the courts with the roof,” she said.
“So there was no chance we would wait till midnight to finish the match. That’s also ridiculous.
“I don’t know, we were just unlucky with the weather. To fix this, you have to make an indoor tournament basically, which is literally impossible.”
But it’s the double standards that Kasatkina doesn’t like.
While she and Badosa were on and off court, the winner was going to play 2024 champion Coco Gauff, the American who had the luxury of playing – and finishing – under a closed roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium the night before.
“The players are not in the same situation because the top players, they’ve got the chance to always be on schedule,” Kasatkina said.
“It’s already a different situation, but that’s our sport. We don’t have it anywhere else.”
