Scheduling has been a longtime topic of discussion on the ATP Tour because, in fairness, the Tours could be doing a better job with it.
Alexander Zverev had very harsh words for the ATP and the way the scheduling was handled at the Madrid Open recently. His semi-final match started a couple of hours after the other semi-final was completed.
It created a hugely unfair advantage for his final opponent, Carlos Alcaraz, because he got many more hours of rest, especially since Zverev’s match was extended and finished very late.
By the time he finished with the post-match obligations, it was a couple of hours after midnight and he didn’t even have proper time to rest and sleep and recover for the final.
It was clearly a problem because he arrived in the final flat and lost it in only one hour of play. Zverev called it a disgrace after the final, and it’s really hard to argue against it.
Novak Djokovic certainly backed up his colleague recently by admitting that it was a terrible situation for Zverev to finish at 1 AM and then have to play a final the next day.
He further stated that he tried to speak out against the issue in the past because, ultimately, it comes from greed. Players' health is being ignored in order to sell more tickets, and there needs to be more balance, according to Djokovic, because it’s not fair.
"You cannot end your semifinal match at 1:00 AM and play the final the following day. I understand that they want to sell more tickets by scheduling a night session on Saturday, but it may cause problems."
"The organizers should talk to players before making this kind of decisions. When I was the President of the Player's Council several years ago, I tried to solve this issue. But still, nothing changed."
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