Exhausted Murray has energy to blast officials after late night finish
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[January 20, 2023]
By Steve Keating
(Reuters) -An exhausted Andy Murray still had enough left in the
tank to blast officials after an epic five-set match at the
Australian Open finished after 4 a.m. on Friday (1700 GMT on
Thursday), well beyond the usual Grand Slam midnight madness.
As fans trudged home for a few hours sleep after watching Murray
rally from two sets and 2-5 down to beat Thanasi Kokkinakis 4-6
6-7(4) 7-6(5) 6-3 7-5, the fired up Scot labelled organisers
"disrespectful."
Murray said he respected the rules but criticised having to play
until the early hours of the morning "and you're not allowed to go
and take a piss."
"It's a joke, it's a joke. You know it as well," he added.
"It's disrespectful to you, disrespectful to the ball children,
disrespectful to the players and we are not allowed to go to the
toilet.
"Ridiculous!"
The Australian Open routinely has matches run past midnight but
former Grand Slam champion John McEnroe called on officials to
implement rules so it never happens so late again.
"I am stunned in disbelief that they were still playing at that
hour," McEnroe told Eurosport. "For starters, it was insane that
matches at that level are played 4 to 4:30 a.m. in the morning."
Tournament director Craig Tiley, though, said there was no need to
tinker with the schedule at this point.
"At this point, we've got to fit those matches in the 14 days, so
you don't have many options," he told Channel Nine.
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"It was an epic match and when you schedule a match like that just
before 10 p.m. in the evening before, you're not expecting it to go
close to six hours."
Tiley pointed out that several hours had been lost due to delays
caused by extreme heat and rain this week.
"You don't often get those conditions in such a short period of time
so we've had three late nights with scheduling trying to catch up
with matches," Tiley added.
Most elite sports do not hold their biggest events into the wee
hours of the morning after most fans have gone to bed, although late
matches in Australia are daytime viewing in the big European TV
markets.
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The latest finish for a match
at the Australian Open was 4.34 am in 2008, when local Lleyton
Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis battled it out in a third round match
that started at 11.47pm.
Murray got little sympathy from third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas on
Friday after the Greek played his third-round match in the afternoon
sunshine.
"It started at a reasonable time, I would say," he said. "There's a
rule in place. They didn't break any rule. The match started at 10
pm. Kokkinakis made it long. Murray made it long, too.
"I think tennis likes these kind of matches because there's a great
story behind this match, and it's going to be remembered.
"I do remember very vividly that Baghdatis played with Hewitt. It is
definitely a very magical moment, if not for the one who loses
because it's painful."
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; Additional reporting by
Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; Editing by Josie Kao and Neil
Fullick)
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