As everyone feared, Friday’s full schedule of the Montreal leg of the National Bank Tennis Open has been postponed due to the remnants of post-tropical storm Debby. As a result, there will be a “doubleheader” for seven men’s singles players on Saturday, if Mother Nature ends up calming her ardor and showing cooperation.
The decision to postpone the 13 matches scheduled for Friday was announced shortly before 1:30 p.m.
In a message to the media, officials said the decision was based on the prevailing weather conditions, the forecast for the rest of the day and also to ensure the safety of all.
“On Thursday, when we looked at the situation for Friday, the most optimistic scenarios, which were not necessarily the realistic scenario, allowed us to hope to perhaps have a window somewhere between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to try to play at least a few games, or one game,” Valérie Tétreault, director of the National Bank Open, first explained in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.
“I would say that when we got up this morning, the data, what was also communicated to us by our meteorologist who is on site, is that it was going to be really very complicated and that he did not see any window,” she added.
From the moment the postponement of the matches became official, Tétreault and ATP officials had to go into catch-up mode to ensure the tournament stuck to the original schedule as closely as possible, with the final scheduled for Monday night.
It is a process that requires a lot of thought, because the decision must take into account several elements, some external, underlines the tournament director.
“For us, the important thing was, on the one hand, not to be too quick and to announce the cancellation of the day and the evening right away. Obviously, the worst nightmare is that you canceled all that and at 7 p.m., it’s not raining and you could have played,” Tétreault first noted.
“But also, it’s about being realistic, looking at the information we have and obviously thinking about the amateurs, some who come from outside the city of Montreal, who travel, and being able to communicate the information to them as quickly as possible. And it’s a bit the same thing on the players’ side so that they can plan their day. For example, we have courts reserved in an indoor club to allow them to hit a few balls.”
The decision-making process, Tétreault also specified, must take into account certain specific regulations for players.
“Certainly the longer we wait to make a decision, the more it has an impact, also, on the time at which we can start the next day, from a players’ point of view. The rule, in fact, is that we must give them at least 14 hours between the time we release them, let’s say, and the time we start a match. For example, if we wait until 10 p.m., we cannot start before noon the next day.”
From Thursday evening
Weather conditions above Montreal and the IGA Stadium began to deteriorate Thursday evening, just as the evening session was due to begin.
The schedule was relatively light: three second-round singles matches were to take place.
One of them, on the central court, was to bring together the Polish Hubert Hurkacz, fourth seed, and the Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis.
At the same time, on the Rogers court, the Italian Flavio Cobolli was to face the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech.
Then, in the middle of the evening, American Taylor Fritz, ranked ninth, was to face his compatriot Sebastian Korda on center court.
However, the rain came at 7pm and only one of these matches could start, the one between Cobolli and Rinderknech. The two players had time to complete three games – all won by the Frenchman in 15 minutes – before having to put away their rackets and, eventually, retreat to the locker room without returning to the court.
This match and the two others scheduled for Thursday were to kick off activities on Friday at noon. Now, they will serve as the kickoff, from 11 a.m., for Saturday’s day, which will include a grand total of 17 matches, including 13 singles.
And since we are in catch-up mode, seven players who will have triumphed in singles at the start of the day will be back on the court later on Saturday, but not necessarily at the same stages of the tournament.
World number one Jannik Sinner could be one of those players. If he beats Alejandro Tabilo on Saturday afternoon in the third round, the Italian will be back on centre court in the evening to face the winner of the duel between Andrey Rublev (5e) and American Brandon Nakashima in the quarter-finals.
To ensure that future rivals have similar recovery time, this match will be held at the same time as the one between Sinner and Tabilo, but on Rogers Court.
Tétreault admits that the postponement of Thursday night’s matches complicates the organizers’ lives for the next few days, because an ATP rule stipulates that a player cannot be asked to play more than two singles matches per day.
“What’s different is that depending on the section of the draw, we’re going to end up with players who have to play third-round and quarter-final matches in the evening, and other players who have to play second-round and round-of-16 matches,” she said.
“For some of these players, the potential, the risk, is to play two matches tomorrow (Saturday) and also to play two matches on Sunday.”
According to the organizers’ new game plan, and with the cooperation of the weather, two quarter-final matches will take place on Saturday and the other two at the same time, on Sunday, at 2 p.m.
Then, we would hold a first semi-final on Sunday at 5 p.m. and the other at 8 p.m.