"What kind of advantage will I have?"- Novak Djokovic shoots down claims that he lucked out with Australian Open scheduling after late start to 2nd QF
Novak Djokovic took down Taylor Fritz in the first men's quarterfinal at the 2024 Australian Open, beating the American 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 on Tuesday (January 23). He will take on either Jannik Sinner or Andrey Rublev next, in what will be his 11th semifinal Down Under. The Serb has never lost a semifinal in Melbourne.
Djokovic was handed another possible advantage ahead of the semifinals, with Sinner and Rublev's quarterfinal not starting until 10:40 pm local time. Scheduled to be the final match of the night session on Rod Laver Arena, Sinner and Rublev's match was pushed back after the first two matches of the day ran long.
First, Coco Gauff and Marta Kostyuk tussled for three hours and 10 minutes, followed by Djokovic and Fritz's three hour and 45 minute-long battle. Aryna Sabalenka and Barbora Krejcikova, the first match of the evening session, then played for 70 minutes before Rublev and Sinner could take the court.
At his post-quarterfinal press conference, Djokovic was asked what he thought about this potential advantage. The World No. 1 shot down the claim immediately, emphasizing that either player will have two days of rest before the semifinals.
He also said that it was up to the Grand Slams to figure out a proper solution to such a hotly debated topic.
"What kind of advantage will I have? We have two days. It's not much of an advantage that I see there. We are playing semifinals on Friday, so plenty of time for whoever wins that match tonight to recover," Novak Djokovic said.
"Scheduling has become a hot topic, so to say. We talked about it, I think few matches ago I talked about it on the press conference, and I couldn't give a really clear answer to that, because, I mean, it's really up to Grand Slams and our respective tours to think about the ways to accommodate both male and female players in a proper way so we have no late finishes," he added.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion further suggested that there was nothing that could have been done on Tuesday to mitigate the issue. He and Gauff both played long matches, which were followed by the usual changes that have to take place before the start of the night session.
"If you are scheduling two matches starting at 12:00 with men playing best-of-five, if it goes three, four hours, takes for them I think, whatever, 45 minutes to clean the stadium, bringing new fans for the night session, so it takes a lot of time, you know," Djokovic said.
"Coco Gauff played a long match today. I played a very long match today. Then you have the night session starting two hours after they were scheduled, after the time they were scheduled," he added.
"There's a lot of elements that are in play, TV broadcasting pays a lot of money" - Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic came up with one possible solution to the scheduling problems, stating that perhaps fewer matches could be played on the center court. But he quickly conceded that that is unlikely to happen, seeing how tournaments have to cater to fans and give them good deals on tickets.
The World No. 1 also spoke about the role of TV broadcasting in influencing which matches get played at what time, and how sponsors try to put more marketable players at prime viewing hours.
"Maybe scheduling less matches on the center court, doing it in one session, which is most likely not going to happen, because every session carries a lot of economical value for them. So of course they are going to communicate it and try it that way and try to get as many people for different sessions," Djokovic said.
"And TV broadcasting, there's a lot of elements that are in play, you know. TV broadcasting pays a lot of money to the tournament and sponsors the tournament. So obviously, you know, in the end of the day, they are the ones drawing the line and saying, you know, we want to see this player at that session or et cetera, et cetera, you know," he added.