On Sunday, June 25th, 2023, fans were treated to multiple ATP & WTA finals, but were they really treated is the question.
After a week full of grass-court action, four final matches were set across for ongoing tournaments. Andrey Rublev and Alexander Bublik were set to meet in the first one of those at the 2023 Halle Open.
Only a few minutes later, another final match was scheduled to begin, this time between Carlos Alcaraz and Alex de Minaur at the 2023 Cinch Championships at the Queen's Club, as the young Spaniard set his sight on the World No. 1 spot.
At the same time, Barbora Krejcikova and Jelena Ostapenko were set to contest the 2023 Birmingham Classic final, while Petra Kvitova and Donna Vekic were set to meet only an hour later in the 2023 Berlin Open final.
A lot of tennis action and many matches to watch for tennis fans, right? Wrong! Unless they have four screens at home, it's almost impossible to follow all the matches and enjoy the thrilling action.
Moreover, it's not something that happened for the first time this season. The scheduling of particular events has been under fire multiple times, but the same problem seems to apply also to the overall scheduling.
For a long time, maximizing the revenue that the Tours are able to produce has been a hot topic, in relation mostly to the prize money then awarded to players. The ATP & WTA are seemingly trying to do that, even considering a buy-in from Saudi Arabia into the sport.
But are they doing it successfully? Well, not really. Scheduling four final matches within 90 minutes doesn't really help to generate a lot of revenue or bring many eyeballs to the particular matches as the number of tennis fans has to be divided by four for each of the finals due to the fact that they are overlapping.
Despite hearing about these issues almost on a weekly basis, the Tours were still not able to cooperate and create a schedule that would keep tennis fans engaged from morning until the evening on the final day. Something that may help not just the viewers to have a more pleasant experience, but also the tournament organizers, sponsors, and in the end, also the players.
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