Daniil Medvedev supported the 2023 Italian Open organizers amid the recent controversies regarding their scheduling.
The Russian usually thinks outside of the box and he showed it once more at the ATP 1000 event in Rome. Fans and players often see only one side of the coin, but Medvedev showed that he can really understand the decisions that organizers sometimes have to take.
On Saturday, Medvedev defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinal match in Rome that was suspended multiple times because of rain and finished around 11 PM local time. After that, the women's final was contested and it ended after midnight.
During the women's trophy, spectators showed that they were not happy with some decisions of the organizers, and they decided to boo them during the ceremony. That once again raised some questions about the tournament's scheduling, but the real question is, could it be prevented?
While there was a weird two-day pause between some quarterfinal and semifinal matches, how the weather played out on Saturday could not have been influenced and it's certain that some matches had to be played on Saturday. Medvedev knows that and he talked about it in his press conference.
"Very long day for everybody: for the fans, for me, for Stefanos, for referees, for Nicola (smiling), for everyone. It's been a little bit hectic, but I want to say I don't think that tournament or ATP has anything to do with this. I think the schedule was good. Just rain was not heavy enough to say, okay, we postpone the match for two hours, but heavy enough to not let us play."
The former world no. 1 knows that sometimes it's a very difficult decision that officials have to make as the weather can be very unpredictable. One minute it can be unplayable and the other everything may seem fine. Because of that, players and fans often receive updates which may be conflicting and cause confusion.
"I warmed up probably five or six times. Where we warm up, there's no TV, so we don't know what's happening. Many, many times they start opening the court. So we are like, Let's warm up, because we have 10, 15 minutes. It's not easy to warm up in 10, 15 minutes."
But Medvedev knows that even if he wanted to find someone to blame, he probably doesn't want to do that as at the end of the day, his performance depends only on himself.
"We run there with my coach. Start warming up. Receive a text they are closing the courts, rain is heavy. Many, many times like this. I knew it's not going to be easy both for me and for Stefanos. So then it was a question of to try to play your best no matter what. I managed to do it, so I'm really happy."
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