Trying to put together an order of play every day for a tournament of the magnitude of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers can be a complicated puzzle with many factors to consider. Each piece needs to fit together seamlessly.
Tournament officials do their absolute best to spread the wealth equally between our valued day and evening session clients, but sometimes the luck of the draw gets in the way. That’s exactly what happened this week, which left some people wondering why certain players were only playing during the afternoon and others only at night.
Case and point, with Félix Auger-Aliassime and Nick Kyrgios both in the top half of the draw, it was important to keep their matches close together on the schedule to ensure the same amount of rest for both winners ahead of Saturday’s semifinals which is why they are together as part of Friday’s day session. Furthermore, it would not have been fair to ask the players who competed in Thursday’s evening session, which finished after 10 p.m., to play their quarter-final at noon or 2 p.m. at the following day. The turnaround would have been too quick and their rest period not sufficient.
Plus, there’s a rule in professional tennis that requires players to play their singles before doubles if the matches are scheduled on the same day. As luck would have it, many players in the top half of the draw also entered doubles in Montreal, including Hubert Hurkacz, Kyrgios’ quarter-final opponent. This meant that officials had to be conscious to schedule many of the singles matches earlier in the day throughout the week so that players could play doubles in the evening following suitable rest.
There’s also the matter of player requests when it comes to the order of play. For a multitude of reasons, some will ask to play at a specific time to ensure they perform at their best and officials try to accommodate requests as much as they can.
We hope you enjoy the world-class tennis that awaits us over the next three days courtesy of the best athletes in the world. Thank you for your continued support of the tournament and for making all the players feel so welcome in our beautiful city. They certainly feel your love and are incredibly motivated to put on a great show for the best tennis fans in the world!
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