By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday August 15, 2023
After Elena Rybakina aired out her frustration about a 3AM finish on Friday night in Montreal, support has come from World No.1 Iga Swiatek.
The Pole knows a thing or two about playing matches that end after midnight, she burnt her share of midnight oil this spring in Madrid and Rome, and she says she’d like to see the tour do a better job of protecting the players in such situations.
“Maybe we should focus more on what is healthy for players because we have to compete every week,” Swiatek said during media hour at Cincinnati on Monday, according to David Kane of Tennis.com. “The tour is so intense with travel and not actually having two days of calm and not working that it would be nice in the future to focus on players, especially next year when there will be more and more mandatory tournaments and longer tournaments.”
Swiatek, as the tour’s marquee player, feels the brunt of the scheduling more than others. She told reporters that she played four matches during Rome and Madrid that either finished close to or after midnight.
It was tough to deal with for the 21-year-old.
“I was always scheduled for the second match of the night session,” she said. “It’s pretty hard to handle it when you have to play in the middle of the night for a couple of weeks.
“And It’s not like we’re finishing and going to sleep after two hours. For me, I’m happy if I go to sleep four hours after I finish. I have almost one hour of treatment, obviously media, I have to stretch after the match, food, and then getting the adrenaline down isn’t easy as well. I wish it could change, that’s all.”
Rybakina is desperate to see change as well. She didn’t seem confident that she’d be able to recover in time to perform at her best in Cincinnati this week, let alone the day after her marathon in Montreal.
“I feel destroyed just because of the scheduling and the whole situation,” she said. “I’m not really happy about it, but yeah, it is what it is. Unfortunately, players cannot do much in these situations. The decision is not really ours.”
