To play at Bercy, it’s better to be a night owl. Tuesday, October 31, it was 2:22 a.m. when Austrian Dominic Thiem finally defeated Swiss Stan Wawrinka at the Masters 1000 in Paris. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Jannik Sinner did “better” by completing his 2nd round at 2:37 against the American MacKenzie McDonald. The 22-year-old Italian was scheduled to play again this Thursday, November 2, in the fourth rotation on Central, against Australian Alex de Minaur. But, too tired, he did not show up on the court.
“I finished the game around 3 a.m. and didn’t go to bed until a few hours later. I had less than twelve hours to rest and prepare for the next match,” explained the 4th player in the world, announcing on X (formerly Twitter) his withdrawal for the round of 16. A few hours earlier, his coach, Darren Cahill, had become irritated by the situation: “Happy for Jannik’s victory but no consideration for the health of the players with the Paris schedule,” the former Australian player had commented on his Instagram account.
On center court, the schedule includes a total of six matches – four during the day, two in the evening – starting at 11 a.m. Already, during its 2022 edition, the tournament had broken a record in this area which it would have done without: a duel between Cameron Norrie and Corentin Moutet ended at 3:04 a.m. This year, the sequence of night-time events starting at a later hour is once again reigniting the controversy.
” What joke “
Released in the second round, Casper Ruud (8th in the world) is the first player to have bounced back from this lineup: “Well done ATP, great way to help one of the best players in the world recover and be as ready as possible as he finished his previous match at 2:37 this morning. 14.5 hours to recover… What a joke,” the 24-year-old Norwegian, although not known for being the biggest mouth in the locker room, quipped on social media on Thursday.
Stan Wawrinka followed suit: “It’s crazy, the tournament doesn’t care and the ATP just follows the wishes of the tournament! Always the same story…” Bercy does not, however, have “the monopoly” on delay and the subject does not date from today, it is even an old sea serpent on the circuit.
And there are no winners in history scheduling games this late. Neither the players, nor the spectators, nor tennis, which seeks to win back a younger audience. In the former Palais omnisports de Paris-Bercy (renamed AccorHotels Arena), the evening session should in theory start at 7:30 p.m. On Wednesday, it was after 10:30 p.m. when it started, more than three hours late . Meanwhile, thousands of people waited in the cold, outside the walls of the 12th arrondissement of Paris, herded “like cattle,” a spectator complained.
Irony of the situation: Thursday, the withdrawal of Sinner and the qualification of Stefanos Tsitsipas (in 1 hour 59 minutes against Alexander Zverev), scheduled just before on the same Central, saw the day’s session end at… 4:40 p.m. A record of precocity this time?
