Gauff, Swiatek no fans of the post-midnight finish

Women’s seeds Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek were tucked up asleep on Sunday morning when Novak Djokovic completed a dramatic four-hour plus win over Lorenzo Musetti at 3 am at Roland Garros.

And the pair of leading women’s seeds have nothing good to say about matches that go on that long as organiser milk maximum turnover out of the cash-cow majors.

“People think you’re done (after match point), but then you have press and then
you have to shower, eat, and then a lot of times people do treatments, so that’s probably not going to bed until 5:00 at the earliest, maybe 6:00, and even 7:00,” Gauff said.

“I definitely think it’s not healthy. It may be not fair for those who have to play late because it does ruin your schedule. 

“I’ve been lucky I haven’t been put in a super late finish yet.

“It’s a complicated thing, but I definitely think for the health and safety of the players it would be in the sport’s best interest I think to try to avoid those matches finishing – or starting after a certain time. 

“Obviously, you can’t control when they finish.”

As world No. 1 Swiatek holds a certain sway – she can and does request not to play at night at the majors..

The three-time champion here admitted, however, that player power in scheduling is extremely limited.

“It’s not like we’re going to fall asleep one hour after the match,” she said. “Usually it takes us, like, four hours to even chill, and you need to do recovery, media. 

“It’s not like the work ends at the match point.”

She added: “I was always one of the players that said that we should start a little bit earlier. Also, I don’t know if the fans are watching these matches if they have to go to work the next day.

“But it’s  not up to us. We need to accept anything that is going to come to us.”

Main photo:- Coco Gauff winning today – by Roger Parker International Sports Fotos Ltd