Petra Kvitova is the latest player to speak out against the scheduling after having a relatively early starting time one day after finishing late at the 2023 China Open.
Petra Kvitova played a really solid first-round match to advance at the China Open but there were some things about it that she didn't like. She didn't like that it started fairly late and consequently ended late at 1 a.m. local time.
That's one of multiple matches in Beijing this week that ended after midnight, as Alexander Zverev experienced it as well. His match finished even later, and he called out the scheduling but got lucky that it didn't really affect him too much as he had a full day to rest up.
Kvitova wasn't that lucky as her next match came less than 24 hours later and as you might expect it didn't go that well. She lost to Liudmila Samsonova in two sets and took to X, formerly Twitter, to voice her frustration with that.
Far from ideal to finish my match at the @ChinaOpen at 1am and then be back on the schedule at NB 5:30pm the next day when some first round matches had yet to be played. I have always played the sport with huge respect and rarely speak out, but this time I feel strongly enough to say that there *has* to have been a fairer option. Please do better for your players @WTA.
Kvitova has a fair point because even though her match wasn't the first on the schedule, it could have easily been one of the last ones to give her enough time to recover properly. Having her play a 2nd round match before some 1st round matches were completed makes very little sense logistically.
It makes even less sense if you add the human component and how late her previous match finished. We've seen multiple players now speak out against these late finishes, and it's becoming something that will need to be addressed.
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