The defending Women's Australian Open champion was asked about the possibility of moving her quarter-final match from the tournament's main court, citing potential time constraints, but after doing the math in her head, decided to I pushed back.
And now a debate is brewing over why the Aryna Sabalenka fight was even considered moved in the first place.
Sabalenka and Barbora Krejcikova started their quarter-final match at 9:09pm Australian time on Tuesday, which was about the time the match between Novak Djokovic and Taylor Fritz was scheduled to start after it dragged on at Rod Laver Arena. It was 2 hours later.
Sabalenka, who won the match in straight sets, said tournament officials moved the match from the main venue to Margaret Court Arena to accommodate the men's match between Jannik Sinner and Andrei Rublev because the Djokovic-Fritz match dragged on. He asked her for the possibility of changing it.
Sinner and Rublev started the match around 10:42 p.m.
“They asked our opinion, what we thought, if we wanted to be impressed right now,” Sabalenka said. According to 7 News.
“We told them, let's see how this match goes, and if it goes really long, it might be a good idea to impress so they don't end up the same way. .” [Daniil] Medvedev the other night.
“Novak won that set 6-2, but it was still quite early so I decided to wait for this match.”
All matches scheduled for the main court ended up being played on the main court, albeit later than planned, but Eurosport's Tim Henman questioned why tournament organizers decided to cancel the women's quarter-final matches. I wondered if they had requested to be moved to another location.
“I'm interested,” Henman said. As reported by the Telegraph. “Why are they asking the girls to travel when it's not even the last game? They're fine, they're going to the game so they'll be a little late, but today is the last game… [Andrey] Rublev and [Jannik] Sinners — they'll be behind the eight ball. ”
John McEnroe offered his own opinion on why this question came up.
“I'll tell you why they asked the ladies, because if they were up 6-0, 6-1 in an hour, they would be.” [the fans] Everybody will rise up in arms,” McEnroe replied to Henman. “Let's say they stay with Rod Laver and they move the players and Sabalenka wins easily. Then everyone will be upset.”
Despite the controversy in court, Sabalenka advanced to the semi-finals and was satisfied with her performance, even though the match started much later than expected.
“I played great tennis,” Sabalenka said, according to the Associated Press. She added: “I hope I can continue to play like this or even longer.”
