Jannik Sinner wants better scheduling of matches at the Madrid Open, saying the night session “messes up the whole day” for players.
Sinner had a morning start on Tuesday and defeated Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-5 to earn his 20th straight win on tour and reach the quarterfinals of the ATP-WTA event in the Spanish capital.
The world No. 1 said he was OK playing at whatever time he was scheduled, but the late matches — some of which have finished past 1 a.m. local time — were “not easy” on the players’ “body and mind.”
“Even if you have a day off, the fans they see only us on court, and then we finish at 1:15 (a.m.),” he said. “But then you have press conference, recovery, eating, treatment, you know, you don’t go to bed until 4 or 5. It messes up the whole day. So I think we can do better, definitely, in this point of view.”
Sinner’s next opponent, Spain’s Rafael Jódar, defeated fellow 19-year-old João Fonseca at 1 a.m. on Monday. Jódar then cruised past Vit Kopriva 7-5, 6-0 on Tuesday afternoon to reach his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal.
“It’s tough when you schedule two matches starting from 8 (p.m.),” Sinner said. “You cannot pretend that matches are over in one and a half hours each, and at 11 (p.m.) the first game is over. When Jódar played in the night it was very, very late, going on court around 11, finish around 1, 1:15. In my point of view that’s too late.”
Sinner said it was “common sense” that he played at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and Jódar started his match at 4 p.m. “because he needs also a little bit more of rest.”
The Sinner-Jódar quarterfinal is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Wednesday at the Caja Magica.
Defending Madrid champion Casper Ruud saved two match points on his way to defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-7 (4), 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3) in nearly three hours.
“I was on the brink of being on the way home already,” Ruud said. “Just really happy and proud of the way I fought back.”
Rudd overcame the match points while serving at 3-5 in the decisive set to reach the quarterfinals. He had 12 break chances but converted only one of them the entire match. Tsitsipas converted one of his five break opportunities.
“I was frustrated about this,” Ruud said. “I knew I had many (chances). I had a couple of games with 0-40 and 15-40, and I felt like he served big at all of them. Well done by him, serving himself out of it.”
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