MADRID — Jannik Sinner wants better scheduling of matches at the Madrid Open, saying the night session “messes up the whole day” for players.
Sinner had a morning start on Tuesday and defeated Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-5 to earn his 20th straight win on tour and reach the quarterfinals of the ATP-WTA event in the Spanish capital.
The world No. 1 said he was OK playing at whatever time he was scheduled, but the late matches — some of which have finished past 1 a.m. local time — were “not easy” on the players’ “body and mind.”
“Even if you have a day off, the fans they see only us on court, and then we finish at 1:15 [a.m.]. But then you have press conference, recovery, eating, treatment, you know, you don’t go to bed until 4 or 5,” he said. “It messes up the whole day. So I think we can do better, definitely, in this point of view.”
Sinner’s next opponent, Spain’s Rafael Jódar, defeated fellow 19-year-old Joao Fonseca at 1 a.m. on Monday. Jódar then cruised past Vit Kopriva 7-5, 6-0 on Tuesday afternoon to reach his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal.
“It’s tough when you schedule two matches starting from 8 [p.m.],” Sinner said. “You cannot pretend that matches are over in one and a half hours each, and at 11 [p.m.] the first game is over. When Jódar played in the night it was very, very late, going on court around 11, finish around 1, 1:15. In my point of view that’s too late.”
Sinner said it was “common sense” that he played at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and Jódar started his match at 4 p.m. “because he needs also a little bit more of rest.”
The Sinner-Jodar quarterfinal is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Wednesday at the Caja Magica.