Novak Djokovic burns the midnight oil in Parisian farce as stars including Carlos Alcaraz outline their concerns over late finishes at the French Open

While Novak Djokovic was sleeping the sleep of the dead, Paris awoke to the news that the world No1 had squeaked past Lorenzo Musetti at 3.07am.

That is an absurd hour at which to be playing tennis, so how did the French Open manage to get themselves into such a tangle?

Terrible weather has crunched the schedule, and several third-round matches were unfinished when the rain came again on Saturday afternoon. Roland Garros took a gamble and decided to squeeze an extra match on to Philippe Chatrier before Djokovic’s night session. But when Alexander Zverev was dragged to five sets and Grigor Dimitrov to four, it was clear the throw of the dice had not paid off – and the man who paid the price was the world No1.

‘I don’t want to get into it. I have my opinions but I don’t want to be talking about the schedule,’ said Djokovic. ‘Some things could’ve been handled a different way. There’s beauty winning the match at 3am if it’s the last one of the tournament but it’s not so I’m going to have to switch all of my young genes and try and recover as quick as possible.’

The Serb was seriously close to his earliest loss at a Grand Slam since 2016. That was a bullet dodged for the French Open – one of the most momentous results of recent years almost took place while the nation slept. If a world No1 falls in the woods, does it matter if no one is awake to hear it?

Iga Swiatek stated that starting matches earlier would be much more beneficial for players

The 37-year-old will have done well to get to bed before 6am and was nowhere to be seen on the practice courts yesterday. He must recalibrate his discombobulated body clock before facing Franciso Cerundolo in the fourth round today.

Djokovic appeared to be having difficulty breathing on court: ‘I mean yeah, when you’re playing 20-plus shot rallies at 2am… heavy conditions, very cold, balls were not going anywhere. I physically pushed myself to the very limit to win this match.’

After the horse had bolted, Roland Garros slammed the stable door shut on Sunday, bringing the start time on Chatrier back an hour to 11am, and players sailed through their matches. If they had only held their nerve and allowed matches to be postponed overnight, there would have been ample time to catch up.

This debacle was an extreme example but late night finishes have become de rigueur at the French Open since 2021, when they installed floodlights on every court and introduced a night session on Chatrier. The reason, you guessed it, is cash.

Roland Garros sell separate tickets for the night sessions and carved them off into a separate TV package, selling the local rights to Prime Video.

Late finishes are an issue across the sport, though, the nadir being a 4.55am finish in Acapulco in 2022. After a player uprising, the ATP and WTA tours introduced a rule, which came in in January, that matches cannot begin later than 11pm – but the Grand Slams are not bound by the changes.

Iga Swiatek said on Sunday: ‘I was always one of the players that said that we should start earlier. Also, I don’t know if the fans are watching these matches if they have to go to work next day or something when the matches are finishing at 2 or 3am.’

Coco Gauff raised concerns over players’ health. ‘Finishing at 3am, people think you’re done, 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 5am at the earliest, maybe 6, and even 7,’ she said.

Coco Gauff raised concerns about the impact that late finishes can have on players’ health

Carlos Alcaraz added that it is difficult for players to recover when they finish playing so late

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

‘For the health and safety of the players it would be in the sport’s best interest to try to avoid those matches finishing – or starting – after a certain time.’

Carlos Alcaraz added: ‘It’s really difficult to recover when you are going to go to sleep so, so late. It’s much better to finish at 6pm, have dinner at a good restaurant, good food. Everything is better if you finish early.’The last word goes to Russian 17-year-old Miira Andreeva, who had her own 2am finish this week and succinctly described the woe of early-morning tennis: ‘It’s so depressing. No one is watching. And it’s cold.’