The Australian Open tournament director called out Coco Gauff as he responded to criticism over scheduling. Craig Tiley and Australian Open organisers came under fire when multiple matches were played into the early hours, including one that went on until 3.40am. But Tiley claimed that he didn’t expect Gauff to play for more than three hours, also ruling out the use of a Wimbledon-style curfew.
For the first time, the Australian Open started on a Sunday this year and was extended to 15 days. The change was made to minimise late-night finishes but ended up having no impact on matches going into the early hours. On day one, Aryna Sabalenka finished her match at 12.30am and it set the tone for the rest of the tournament, with Daniil Medvedev winning his second-round match at 3.40am while several days of play were only completed after midnight.
It led to criticism, with some claiming that play on the main show court should start earlier while others pointed to Wimbledon’s curfew, which means any matches still going on at 11pm have to be finished the following day. But Australian Open boss Tiley will refuse to bring in such measures, instead calling out Gauff and the umpires.
“We can’t start before 7pm because of the news in Australia so you rule that out,” he told ABC. “And one thing that we can never do is predict the length of a match.” Tiley then turned his attention to Gauff’s lengthy quarter-final against Marta Kostyuk.
He continued: “You’re not going to think Coco is going to play for three-and-a-half hours. So we also try and put schedules on what we think our matches will go to.” The match in question had a ripple effect, with Novak Djokovic and Taylor Fritz also contesting a long contest.
It meant the day session finished 90 minutes after the night session was supposed to start. Organisers had offered the night session players a chance to switch courts, which they denied. Instead of an earlier schedule, Tiley said officials would try to “tighten” match start times.
But he also claimed that some rules needed to change, suggesting that the umpires needed to be quicker with their use of the shot clock, “Sometimes the shot clock starts way too late. That should be tightened up,” he added.
