'24 US Open Day 7 Order of Play & Discussion

[patrick]

Tennis Podcast talks about this on a regular basis. Their solution is to start the women's match first in the night session when the men's are playing a best of 5. Of Sharapova entire career, she always played the first match (especially when Djokovic, Nadal or Federer are on the night schedule) while the Williams Sisters played the last match on a normal basis,

[FredX]

Full circle then - for years the women's match was always first. They only started mixing it up in the last few years for....equity reasons? I don't know. I can't imagine any of the women want to go second even if it makes them the "headliner".

[skatingfan]

It's not just about which match is going second. They have to be ready to move a match to another court when it's clear the start time is going to be later than say 9 pm.

[ti-amie]

It's not just about which match is going second. They have to be ready to move a match to another court when it's clear the start time is going to be later than say 9 pm.

Devils advocate.

If play is done for the day on say Armstrong and the cleaning staff have finished do you reopen the court for the second match?

Don't get me wrong I agree that it was unfair to both women to have to play into the early morning but I don't think that the solution is as easy as we think. Overtime pay, security, etc.

[ponchi101]

Full circle then - for years the women's match was always first. They only started mixing it up in the last few years for....equity reasons? I don't know. I can't imagine any of the women want to go second even if it makes them the "headliner".

Precisely that.
The worst part. It was one hell of a match. Better than Tiafoe-Popyrin.
And it ended with almost empty seats.
They have to drop the two-matches per night session thing.

[skatingfan]

Devils advocate.

If play is done for the day on say Armstrong and the cleaning staff have finished do you reopen the court for the second match?

Don't get me wrong I agree that it was unfair to both women to have to play into the early morning but I don't think that the solution is as easy as we think. Overtime pay, security, etc.

Then they need to start the matches earlier. They had four matches scheduled on Arthur Ashe, and it took 14 hours to play them so they can't start play at noon.

[jazzyg]

They used to have just 1 match. But then one year in the late 80s, Navritilova beat Manuela Maleeva 6-0, 6-0 and there was tremendous complaining. They went to 2 night matches in subsequent years. Although totally unrelated to this point, Maleeva actually beat Martina in the same round the very next year.

[ti-amie]

[mmmm8]

Devils advocate.

If play is done for the day on say Armstrong and the cleaning staff have finished do you reopen the court for the second match?

Don't get me wrong I agree that it was unfair to both women to have to play into the early morning but I don't think that the solution is as easy as we think. Overtime pay, security, etc.

Then they need to start the matches earlier. They had four matches scheduled on Arthur Ashe, and it took 14 hours to play them so they can't start play at noon.

Yes, I absolutely do not understand the decision to move Ashe start to noon the last couple of years, the only benefit is they now can have someone practice on Ashe at 10 am and let crowds watch I guess.

Move it back to 11 am and move the night start to 6:30 pm.

[ponchi101]

Make the courts faster.
At all slams.
You get these marathon matches because by now, the players can track down any ball on these slow surfaces, and every match lasts way more than before. And, because the serve and volley game was eliminated, you don't get fast matches.
But that is me dreaming.

[FredX]

It doesn't seem absurd to have just one men's match at night. Twenty years ago there were plenty of empty seats in the night match, they don't have to worry about that now. People will come.
I don't see moving a match to Armstrong in the case of a late start- if people pay to see a star and they go on second, they want to see that person.

What they could do is start Ashe at 11 like all the other courts, schedule just two matches on Ashe and Armstrong but reserve the right to move one of the last outside court matches to those venues at the end of the day session if time allows and there are two straight set blow-outs or leave them at two matches if they are competitve. Then the day session ticket holders get value for their tickets either way and you can make the switch to a six o'clock start.

I do think the idea of making the play faster is another angle to look at it. Making the surfaces faster? Maybe. Playing lets would help a lot, I think. Being more strict about certain things, like making the receiver play to the server's pace might help (no hand raising, you have to be ready). Another thing that has always bugged me is the re-toss - make the shot clock go to to when the racquet strikes the ball and not the toss...you have a certain amount of time to serve...bad toss, too bad.

[mmmm8]

It doesn't seem absurd to have just one men's match at night. Twenty years ago there were plenty of empty seats in the night match, they don't have to worry about that now. People will come.
I don't see moving a match to Armstrong in the case of a late start- if people pay to see a star and they go on second, they want to see that person.

What they could do is start Ashe at 11 like all the other courts, schedule just two matches on Ashe and Armstrong but reserve the right to move one of the last outside court matches to those venues at the end of the day session if time allows and there are two straight set blow-outs or leave them at two matches if they are competitve. Then the day session ticket holders get value for their tickets either way and you can make the switch to a six o'clock start.

I do think the idea of making the play faster is another angle to look at it. Making the surfaces faster? Maybe. Playing lets would help a lot, I think. Being more strict about certain things, like making the receiver play to the server's pace might help (no hand raising, you have to be ready). Another thing that has always bugged me is the re-toss - make the shot clock go to to when the racquet strikes the ball and not the toss...you have a certain amount of time to serve...bad toss, too bad.

They do this already, for both Ashe and Armstrong. It's typically a doubles match as they can expect that to go faster. They did it on WEdensday.

[FredX]

They do, but it doesn't happen often because Ashe starts an hour later and because Armstrong has three scheduled day matches. If they both had only two scheduled day matches that both started at 11 they would have more flexibility - particularly if those two matches go long and they want to get the night session started on time.

And of course it would help if they didn't do this:

IMG_2884.jpg

This went on for a half an hour before the night matches on Wednesday. There's just no time for this - I didn't get home until 3 AM and i still missed the last set of Zverev/Etcheverrey.

[ponchi101]

What is that? Pickleball?
Hell of a way to promote a sport, dudes! That's like having kids play soccer before an NFL game.

[FredX]

No, it wasn't THAT bad. Little kids playing little kid tennis over little kid nets...I'm sure it's a good cause, but...no time for this stuff!