Sports
Morning after the night before: In the cold light of day, a tennis match at 3am is ridiculous
Follow live coverage of day 10 at the 2024 French Open today
You know those nights when you tell yourself that you’re going to be sensible and not stay out too late — but you kind of know deep down that you will?
That’s pretty much how tennis’ Grand Slams feel about ludicrously late finishes.
After the Australian Open’s 4:05am finish last year (and its 3:40am one this time), and the U.S. Open’s 2:50am in September 2022, Roland Garros said, ‘Hold my biere’ in the early hours of Sunday as it recorded its latest ever finish to a day’s play — 3:06am. The French Open, which didn’t even have a night session until 2021 (and no floodlights until a year earlier), shattered its latest-ever-finish record by almost two hours when Novak Djokovic beat Lorenzo Musetti, 7-5, 6-7(6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-0, as though it felt left out from this ludicrous club.
Wimbledon, with its 11pm curfew, is the only outlier among the four Grand Slams. Tennis officials say that they are learning, that they are aware that these are farcical finish times. And yet they continue.
Despite the silliness of the situation, it’s not something that the French Open deliberately engineered. These finishes are a consequence of dysfunction in tennis, but nobody actually thinks they are a good idea, even if the Australian and U.S. Opens have for a long while appeared to treat late finishes as a badge of honour, rather than a serious risk to players’ welfare.
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The events of Saturday night and Sunday morning came about because of the rain that blighted the first week at Roland Garros. Grigor Dimitrov and Zizou Bergs had already seen their third-round match postponed by a day, and needed to get it done ahead of the winner playing again on Sunday.
With rain still falling, the schedulers tried to squeeze it in ahead of Djokovic-Musetti. Dimitrov was two sets up, but Bergs stole the third, and it ran longer than hoped for before Dimitrov triumphed.
Djokovic and Musetti didn’t take to the court until around 10:30pm, having been scheduled for 8:15pm. There was no move possible, because it would have deprived night-session spectators of the match they’d come, and specifically paid, to see. So Djokovic and Musetti waited and waited, the match when it came was an epic, and there we all were at 3am, wondering how tennis found itself in this position, which is so damaging to players.
Musetti and Djokovic’s incredible match came at a cost. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
That kind of finish can mean anything up to a 7am bedtime once a player has completed their post-match commitments.
And it wasn’t just Djokovic and Musetti who finished late on Saturday/Sunday — Casper Ruud and Tomas Martin Etcheverry didn’t get off court until close to 1am, while Taylor Fritz and Thanasi Kokkinakis were done about an hour earlier.
Playing until that late affects players’ circadian rhythms, and can leave them feeling disorientated for days after. There is a reason why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. Lack of sleep compromises the ability to think, the immune system, and attention span and reaction time, which are vital for athletes.
Dr Robby Sikka is the medical director for the Professional Tennis Player Association (PTPA) — the organization Djokovic co-founded in 2020 to address, among other issues, working conditions for arguably the most important people in the sport — and takes the view that muscle recovery is only part of the problem.
“There will be neurological consequences too. Neurological recovery takes longer the more you put a player through, and another five-set match would be very tough,” Dr Sikka said.
Those post-match commitments that can go on until sunrise don’t just entail media duty.
“You lose a complete night of sleep and sleeping is part of the recovery, one of the biggest parts. The food, everything we do, treatments, ice baths. All this stuff, and you don’t sleep,” said current men’s world No 18 Karen Khachanov after Russian compatriot Medvedev’s 3.40am finish at the Australian Open back in January.
Emil Ruusuvori leaves the court after his loss to Medvedev at the Australian Open. (Anthony Wallace / AFP)
Medvedev had a series of long matches and late finishes in Melbourne before, perhaps inevitably, running out of steam in the final against Jannik Sinner from two sets up.
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“I definitely think it’s not healthy,” said women’s world No 3 Coco Gauff on Sunday. “It may be not fair for those who have to play late, because it does ruin your schedule. “For the health and safety of the players, it would be in the sport’s best interest to try to avoid those matches starting after a certain time. Obviously, you can’t control when they finish.”
The current Wimbledon men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz, who was the winner of that U.S. Open match that finished just shy of 3am two years ago, also against Sinner, expressed his dislike too; women’s world No 9 Ons Jabeur called it “unhealthy”.
But this is about more than just the players. There is a whole ecosystem involved in running a tennis match: the unpaid ball kids, security personnel, umpires, and myriad other staff involved all have to stay that late, too.
As do the fans.
Women’s world No 1 Iga Swiatek expressed sympathy for everyone who has to go to work after a match, and said matter-of-factly that the reason she asks not to play night matches is because, “I just like to sleep normally.”
Gauff playing an eerie night session in Paris in 2020. (Martin Bureau / AFP via Getty Images)
Djokovic resisted giving his views on the situation, but 17-year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva was not so diplomatic.
Her second-round match against Victoria Azarenka started at around 10:30pm on Thursday, and didn’t finish until after 1am on Friday. “It’s so depressing,” said Andreeva, who was playing on tiny Court 12, in front of barely any fans. “No one is watching, and it’s cold. You are playing, fighting, and no one is there.”
Dr Sikka emphasised his belief that not only is tennis an outlier, but other sports are outliers because they view this kind of situation as ridiculous. “We are watching one of the best athletes at recovering (Djokovic) for 20 years — in any sport, but you would never do that to Tom Brady (in American football) or LeBron James (basketball).”
The implication, and it’s hard to argue, is that it makes tennis feel like a novelty act rather than a serious sport.
Recognising the absurdity of these situations, the ATP and WTA have taken steps to try to redress the balance.
At the start of the year, they announced that matches would not start later than 11pm.
That first reform came after Sinner had to pull out of the Paris Masters in November, after he won a match that started after midnight and finished at nearly 3am. In Acapulco, Mexico, two years ago, Alexander Zverev beat the American Jenson Brooksby at 4:55am — the latest ever finish to a professional tennis match.
Women’s world No 4 Elena Rybakina, who revealed on Saturday that she has struggled to sleep of late, finished a match at the Rogers Cup in August just before 3am. Rybakina said she was “destroyed” by the experience, and drew a pretty straight line from that finish to an injury she suffered the following week in Cincinnati, retiring hurt from her second-round match against Italy’s Jasmine Paolini despite having won the first set.
Rybakina serving during that late match against Daria Kastakina. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
“It was horrible,” Rybakina said shortly afterwards. “It’s not easy because they (the injuries) are not even because of tennis. It’s really tough to recover when you go to sleep at 5am.”
Rybakina also called out the WTA: “I think it’s a bit unprofessional. The leadership is a little bit weak for now. But hopefully something is going to change.”
The Grand Slams make their own rules, and despite attempts to reform, the Australian Open endured the same old problems this year. Tennis Australia hoped that a Sunday start to the tournament would ease the scheduling burden, and hoped that reducing the number of matches in the day sessions from three to two would mean less chance of the evening matches starting late.
It didn’t work, because tennis matches have gotten so long that these kinds of schedules are no longer fit for purpose.
Research by The Athletic last year showed that men’s matches at Grand Slam level increased by around 25 per cent over a 24-year period. At the 2022 U.S. Open, three hours was almost the average length of a match, rather than the novelty it used to be. Within that context, a four-and-a-half-hour match like the one on Saturday/Sunday is well within the normal range.
A similar length match, for Djokovic’s first-round win over Dino Prizmic at the Australian Open, meant the women’s defending champion Aryna Sabalenka didn’t even get on court for the first match of her title defence until after 11.30pm — comfortably beyond the ATP and WTA cutoff.
Curfews and start time cut-offs feel like the most obvious solutions. And if tennis actually wants to address the root of the problem, it should give serious consideration to making the first weeks of Grand Slams best-of-three rather than best-of-five sets for men’s matches.
Baseball and cricket are evidence that sports can evolve and modernise, even if the Slams can always point to how well-attended their events are as evidence that there’s no real need for them to reform.
Tennis players know that they risk looking entitled by complaining about these sorts of issues. But they are also aware of the risks to themselves and to the sport of allowing the situation to continue.
Speaking in August, seven months on from his initial fury at being made to play tennis at 4am against Thanasi Kokkinakis in Melbourne, Andy Murray said: “Often when the players complain about that stuff, you hear, ‘Oh, shut up and get on with it. Try working in a warehouse from nine to five’.
Murray on his way to finishing after 4am. (William West / AFP)
“I get that. I know I’m fortunate to be playing tennis. It’s just… tennis is also entertainment. I don’t think it helps the sport that much when everyone’s leaving because they have to go and get public transport home and you finish a match in front of 10 per cent of the crowd. You don’t see it in other sports, so it’s clearly wrong.”
In football/soccer, global players’ union FIFpro warned the sport’s world governing body, FIFA, that players would take “matters into their own hands” if nothing was done to address their growing workload. It even suggested that strike action is possible.
But football, as well as other sports such as baseball, has reformed. In the English Premier League, for example, teams can no longer play in the 12:30pm Saturday slot if they’ve played away in continental Europe on the Wednesday night.
The Djokovic-led PTPA will keep making its case to the sport’s governing bodies, which consist of seven different organisations empowered to enact their own rules with little input from active players.
The morning after the night — and morning — before, the vibe at Roland Garros on Sunday was bleary-eyed.
The spectacle of the match had faded, into both tiredness and a kind of disbelief that this is still allowed to happen.
In the cold light of day, it seemed unnecessary for an event that is supposed to be about fun and entertainment to feel compromised like this.
Never again. Until the next time.
(Top photo of Novak Djokovic: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images)
Sports
Tom Brady loved watching alma mater Michigan beat USC as new rivalries form in Big Ten: 'Kicked their a–'
The Big Ten Conference expansion brought four powerhouse football programs from the dissolved Pac-12, and because of their arrival, new rivalries are starting to bud.
Take Michigan and USC for example, as those two ranked squads had an absolute thriller at “The Big House” in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this past week. The Wolverines came out on top, thanks to a last-minute touchdown to make it 27-24.
One former Wolverine loved every second of that 89-yard drive to cap a tremendous victory at home.
USC wide receiver Ja’Kobi Lane, #8, makes a catch for a touchdown against Michigan defensive back Makari Paige, #7, and defensive back Jyaire Hill, #20, during the second half at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (IMAGN)
“Well, I loved Michigan beating USC the other week, that’s for sure,” Tom Brady told Fox News Digital.
It is odd for college football fans to see USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon facing off against other Big Ten schools in conference play, but it will quickly become commonplace in the seasons to come.
If anything, games like the one between the Wolverines and Trojans last week will turn up more and more considering the talent and football tradition that each school adds.
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Being a California native, Brady knows all about the Trojan tradition, and he said that was where he wanted to go when he starred at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, California.
Obviously, that never came to fruition. So, when he saw Michigan’s come-from-behind victory, he loved being about to “stick it to” the Trojans.
“USC, I wanted to go there, but they didn’t want me,” he said. “So, I always kind of feel like I can stick it to them, even with all the quarterbacks they’ve had over the years with Carson Palmer, [Matt] Leinert, my boy Matt Cassel and [Mark] Sanchez. They have such a great football tradition, so it was nice to see the Wolverines kicked their a– last week.”
The Big Ten Conference is filled with football traditions of its own, having other iconic programs like Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin and Indiana. Even Rutgers is known for being the birthplace of college football as it hosted the first intercollegiate game in 1869 on College Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Michigan defensive back Makari Paige, #7, and defensive back Jyaire Hill, #20, tackle USC wide receiver Zachariah Branch, #1, during the first half at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (IMAGN)
The tradition only grows, as the USC-UCLA rivalry enters the fold while they create new ones as the years and seasons pass by.
For Brady, he is hoping, no matter a new or old rivalry, that his Wolverines will hoist the Big Ten Championship trophy when all is said and done.
In the meantime, Brady is watching these rivalries be put to the test off the field during this college football season, as he partnered with the Big Ten and Abbott, the multinational medical devices and health care company, for its We Give Blood Drive.
This nationwide blood drive competition involves all 18 schools in the conference, where they are hoping to help tackle a health problem in the United States.
“We’re at a huge blood shortage in the U.S., and for every blood donation, you can save up to three lives,” Brady told Fox News Digital Thursday. “I think that’s the important part. Sometimes, we take for granted the little things that make big impacts, and this is one of them.”
The way the We Give Blood Drive initiative works is that students, alumni and fans of the 18 schools involved will see mobile blood drives on campuses throughout the college football season, from Sept. 26 through Dec. 6. Those who wish to donate can also go to any center across the country and show proof of donation, and everyone will receive a one-month free subscription to B1G+, the conference’s streaming service.
Michigan Wolverines quarterback Tom Brady, #10, in action against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium. (USA TODAY Sports)
The school credited with donating the most blood — each donation counts for one point — will receive a $1 million donation to advance student or community health.
“I love that people are trying to do positive things and find really unique ways and strategies to create awareness. Abbott partnering with the Big Ten and really making it a competition, all the students can all participate, and they give back to the school when the team competes and when they win. It’s just very creative. It’s very thoughtful. It’s a fun way to do good things in our communities and just happy to partner with Abbott and the Big Ten to do it.”
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Thursday night the Dodgers won the division for the 11th time in 12 years. And then celebrated like they won the World Series. Something they have done only one time since 1988, and that was the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The last two seasons the Dodgers failed to win a postseasons series, being swept last season by Arizona and in four games in by the Padres in 2022.
With a 10-zillion dollar payroll, Thursday’s meaningless celebration better not be the only one the Dodgers have this season. If it is, there are many people on the team who need to be part of another organization next season.
Erik Schuman
Fountain Valley
::
Nice season so far, Dodgers. I didn’t see any trophies handed out on Thursday night. The Dodgers’ first playoff game is in eight days. The first spring training game next year will be on Feb. 20.
Please, Dodgers, understand and know the difference. Treat the playoff game like a playoff game, and the spring training game like a spring training game.
Steve Hoisch
West Hills
::
Ahead of the annual letters complaining that the Dodgers celebrate the winning of a mere division title with Champagne and much merriment, a reminder:
This is baseball, not basketball. These guys slog through 162 games, not 82, only to be faced with a playoff format now so bloated that — this being baseball — the best team might not win, let alone reach the World Series (see: 2023, Texas Rangers, Arizona Diamondbacks).
So I’ll enjoy the joy of every step and take nothing as a given, which makes baseball special.
Donn Risolo
Altadena
At his darkest moment, when the worst thoughts flooded his soul, Mike Pereira wondered whether it was time to give up. Nothing alleviated his back pain — not yoga, not pilates, not any of the various methods of pain management his doctors recommended. Something we take for granted, stepping out of bed each morning, became too excruciating to endure.
Pereira had spent 14 years as an NFL sideline judge and vice president for league officiating before transitioning into a broadcasting pioneer — the first rules analyst for NFL broadcasts when Fox Sports hired him in 2010. But last year, at age 73 and in deep agony, his mind wandered to a dark place. He said he had suicidal thoughts.
“I had never experienced anything like the pain I had,” Pereira said. “I almost gave up. I mean, I almost gave up on life as I knew it. I became such a burden to anybody around me and in so much pain that I laid in my bed saying, ‘Is it really worth this?’ I never thought of myself as someone who would contemplate that. When you’re in that much pain and it slips into your mind one time, it keeps going around your mind. You have to fight it.”
Now, after missing the entire 2023 NFL season, Pereira is back on television for Fox, working a full schedule of college football and NFL games. That’s the result of successful spinal surgery in November at a San Francisco hospital, an 8 1/2-hour procedure that involved fusing seven levels of Pereira’s spinal vertebrae. Pereira was hospital-bound for a week after the surgery, followed by another in-patient week at a rehab facility in Sacramento, Calif.
He was told the surgery was successful, but it didn’t feel that way as he lay helpless in his hospital bed in November. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely move, and his blood pressure would crash anytime he attempted to get out of bed. Finally, he was able to get into a wheelchair, then he moved up to navigating a walker.
“I felt a sense of accomplishment over the simplest things,” he said. “When you’ve been that low and then you feel the accomplishment of being able to achieve something that you couldn’t do before, your attitude changes.”
The healing continued, and Pereira was strong enough to travel to the NFC Championship Game in San Francisco in January. He surprised Fox’s top NFL crew during a production meeting at their hotel and was overwhelmed by his colleagues leaping out of their chairs to greet him.
“The sincere and genuine love that I felt at that moment was overwhelming,” Pereira said. “That moment convinced me I was coming back to work.”
I’m back and well in Cleveland. I’m so thankful! pic.twitter.com/N7bggnmRo4
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) September 8, 2024
Pereira said his top bosses at Fox Sports — CEO Eric Shanks and executive producer Brad Zager — asked him prior to the season how much travel he wanted to do, and he has opted for eight or nine regular-season games on the road (he switches off with fellow rules analyst Dean Blandino) and the rest working from Fox’s Century City studios. (When Pereira and Blandino work from the studio, they watch games from what Fox Sports employees call the “Sky Box,” which is where the pregame show is done.) His road trips so far have included Cleveland for Week 1 and Dallas last week. This week, Pereira will work from Los Angeles — one college game Friday night, nine college games Saturday and four NFL games Sunday.
“I’m now almost 10 1/2 months from the surgery, and I can walk 2 miles a day,” he said. “I can do just about everything that I could before with the exception of I can’t put shoes on by myself. I’ve been after Howie Long to give me some Skechers, but he’s not come through yet (laughs). But I don’t care about any of the small issues because I have my life back. I mean, it was gone and now I have it back.”
We now take for granted rules analysts working on sports television and streaming, but Pereira was a genuine game-changer when Fox created the role for him in 2010. Viewers had longed for broadcasters to provide accurate explanations from the NFL’s Byzantine rule book, and Pereira took the burden off the announcers. Joe Buck once told me he considered Pereira the best hire in Fox Sports history. Pereira said he could have never seen his hiring in 2010 as a precursor for the many rules analysts we now see on television across sports.
Mike Pereira before the Week 1 game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns. He missed the 2023 season due to his injury. (Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
“It’s wonderment because I never in my mind saw this job coming,” Pereira said. “I never thought when it was my time to retire from the NFL, I would have something like this available. I’m not only proud of the fact of what it has meant to us as former football officials and the role of trying to educate the fans, but I also take pride in the fact that I watch a soccer game, there’s a rules analyst. Same with the NBA. I now see networks with golf rules analysts. Fox started it, but at least I was decent enough at it that everybody felt it was a good idea. I take pride in that. I really do.”
Talking to Pereira these days, it’s hard not to come away with some perspective on mortality. He said he feels like a new person and has such little pain that he no longer has to take Tylenol or any kind of pain reliever. There was even an unexpected result from the surgery: He measures 2 inches taller in height.
“There are things I can’t do, but I’m living my absolute best life at home and at work,” Pereira said. “Some people might say that, but because of the appreciation of where I’ve been, I really believe I’m living my best life today.”
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
(Top photo of Mike Pereira on the field before last week’s Baltimore Ravens-Dallas Cowboys game: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
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