Andy Murray says ‘tennis needs to have a think’ about late matches: ‘I don’t think it looks professional’

Shahida Jacobs
September 15, 2022

Andy Murray has urged tennis authorities to rethink the scheduling of late matches after Great Britain’s Davis Cup doubles match against the United States finished at 00:58 in Glasgow.

The group stage rubber between the two countries were 1-1 heading into the deciding doubles clash with three-time Grand Slam winner Murray teaming up with doubles world No 1 Joe Salisbury to take on Jack Sock and Rajeev Ram.

Many of the fans who had arrived at 4pm for the opening match had already left by the time the encounter got underway at 22:00 BST.

The British pair went down 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 to give the USA a 2-1 win. Tommy Paul beat Dan Evans earlier in the day before Cameron Norrie the hosts level with a three-set win over Taylor Fritz.

Murray, though, was not impressed by the late start.

“There were probably half of the people in there at the end of the match that were there at the beginning. It’s a bit of a shame because, well, they missed a great match,” he said.

“It’s not probably because they didn’t want to stay. If you’ve got children here, you can’t stay with them. If you’ve got to get a bus or train home, you can’t do it.

“It’s not easy for a crowd to maintain an amazing atmosphere for 10 hours.”

It is not the first time that late-night matches have come under scrutiny as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s US Open quarter-final match ended at 2.50am.

Earlier in the year Alexander Zverev’s win over Jenson Brooksby at the Mexican Open made history as their 4:55am finish in Acapulco was the latest-ever finish in tennis.

Murray added: “We’ve seen it obviously at the US Open even just last week. It’s something that tennis needs to sort of have a bit of a think about. I don’t think it looks that professional.”

Great Britain will return to action on Friday when they take on the Netherlands in the second Group D rubber while their final match-up will be against Kazakhstan on Sunday. The Netherlands defeated Kazakhstan 2-1 on Wednesday.

The United States face Kazakhstan in their second encounter on Thursday before finishing the group stage campaign against the Netherlands on Saturday.

The winners and runner-up of the four groups will advance to the Davis Cup Finals knockout stage with the quarter-finals, semi-final and finals taking place in Malaga, Spain, from November 24-27.

Andy Murray