Australian Open chief Craig Tiley defends schedule after 4am finish to Murray match

Saturday, 21 January 2023 at 06:00

Updated at Saturday, 21 January 2023 at 02:13

byTom Grant

The head of the Australian Open has brushed of critic's calls for a night-session scheduling rejig after Andy Murray's match finished after 4am on Friday.

Craig Tiley defended the schedule for night matches that found Murray and opponent Thanasi Kokkinakis slog out an almighty battle that finished at 4.05am after beginning at around 10pm local time.

The Tennis Australia chief executive hit back at those arguing about the impact such a scenario has on ball kids, umpires, spectators and the players after Murray slammed organisers both during and after his five-set win.

Murray said post match:

"If my child was a ball kid for a tournament, they’re coming home at 5 in the morning, as a parent, I’m snapping at that. It’s not beneficial for them. It’s not beneficial for the umpires, the officials. I don’t think it’s amazing for the fans. It’s not good for the players. We talk about it all the time. It’s been spoken about for years. When you start the night matches late and have conditions like that, these things are going to happen.”

Despite the three-time Grand Slam champion's stinging criticism, Tiley insisted Thursday night's events were a rare event and were a consequence of delays caused by the Melbourne weather during the first week.

He told Australia's Channel 9 Today programme:

"At this point there is no need to change the schedule. We will always look at it, when we do the (tournament) debrief – like we do every year. It was an epic match and when you schedule a match like that just before 10(pm) in the evening before you’re not expecting it to go close to six hours. When you have 25 sessions, two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people coming through the gate, all the best players in the world here, you’re going to have those moments.

Tiley added:

"There are so many variables. Over the last few days we have had extreme heat, we’ve had over five breaks of rain, we’ve had cold and those are – it’s Melbourne you but 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.”

The Murray match wasn't even the latest ever finish clocked at the Australian Open.

In 2008, Aussie Lleyton Hewitt defeated Marcos Baghdatis in a match that finished at 4.34am.

One possible solution would be to start the night session earlier than the 7pm slot. Although organizers might be reluctant to do so due to contracts they have with broadcasters.