Novak Djokovic led PTPA support Alexander Zverev’s criticism of the ATP Tour and China Open over scheduling fiasco, claim even fans are affected

Zverev called out the China Open organizers after his match against Davidovich Fokina lasted until 3:00 am.

Novak Djokovic led PTPA support Alexander Zverev’s criticism of the ATP Tour and China Open over scheduling fiasco, claim even fans are affected

Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic (Credit : USTA)

World no. 10 Alexander Zverev faced the high-flying Russian Daniil Medvedev in the semi final of ATP 500 China Open on Tuesday. The world no.3 defeated the 8th seeded German 6-4,6-3 to reach his eighth tour-level final of the season. With the win, Medvedev improves his head-to-head over his long-term rival to 10-7. The pair have faced each other 5 times, with Medvedev winning 4 of them.

Zverev had a tough road to the semi final, playing 3-setters in all 3 matches leading to the final. The round of 16 encounter against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina was challenging in particular as the match went on till around 2:40 am local time. The 26-year old lashed out at the tournament organizers saying that he shouldn’t have been made to wait till midnight to start his match. Zverev went on to say that in such cases the match venue should be changed , if possible, in order to start the match early.

YouTube video

Novak Djokovic led PTPA backed Zverev on the issue saying that late-night matches have negative consequences on all the stakeholders involved. PTPA’s official account shared a post on ‘X’ captioned, “Late-night matches don’t only harm players. They have negative consequences for fans, ball kids, event employees, and all stakeholders involved.”

FS Video

In the video shared, the PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar said, “Some tournaments have a curfew, which is laudable. Some tournaments have no curfew and seem to revel in late-ending matches and almost taking a victory lap when a match ends at 2am, 3am or even 4am local time.”

Australian Open became the next Grand Slam after Wimbledon to work towards avoiding late-night matches. While the Wimbledon has enforced a strict curfew to avoid extending the matches into late-hours in the night, the Australian Open has announced a 15 day tournament to allot more time for the matches to be finished in time.

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PTPA executive director backs Alexander Zverev on scheduling concerns

“That from a playing perspective doesn’t really make sense and neither does it make sense from a fan perspective, a broadcasting perspective and any commercial partner perspective. If you look in the stands and zoom out from the exhausted players at those matches, the fans are mostly gone. They have jobs, they have families and things to do, they just need to go to sleep,” PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar said, talking about the downsides of late-night matches.

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Alexander Zverev (Credits : USTA)

Next up, Zverev will play at the ATP 1000 Shanghai Masters on Tuesday, October 7th. The German pro has 5 Masters titles to his name including the 2018 year-end ATP finals. The world no.10 is yet to confirm his spot in this year’s year-end championship to be played in Turin, Italy.

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