Borrowing a line from former IOC boss Juan Antonio Samaranch, tennis chief Craig Tiley is trumpeting “one of the best Australian Open ever”.
Whereas forecasting formatting tweaks after some imperfect scheduling, Tiley mentioned report crowds flocking to Melbourne Park and glowing participant suggestions signalled the Open had restored its standing as “the Comfortable Slam”.
Greater than one million spectators attended for the primary time within the historical past of grand slams, with the largest and richest occasion on the Australian sporting calendar climaxing on Sunday night time with a brand new males’s champion topped in Italian sensation Jannik Sinner.
“It has been one of the best Australian Open ever,” Tennis Australia CEO Tiley mentioned.
“All our metrics reveals that, from participant suggestions to fan expertise.
“We actually drove laborious on much more innovation than we usually do.”
Regardless of criticism for nonetheless extra early-morning finishes, Tiley insists the gamers had hailed the Open as “wonderful”.
Among the many added advantages for the sport’s stars have been a 13 per cent prize cash enhance to a $105 million whole purse, coaches being given per diem funds for the primary time, and a state-of-the-art new fitness center and restoration centre.
“We targeted on the coach expertise,” Tiley mentioned.
“So we offer the coaches with the quiet room, with coaches containers, information room entry to all information in actual time.
“We paid for the coaches’ meals the entire time and we actually celebrated the function that the coaches play, and the gamers really feel actually good about that as a result of it takes the stress off just a little bit too.
“We spent tens of millions of {dollars} placing within the world-class ice baths within the males’s and ladies’s locker rooms and on the restoration centre.
“We added extra medical companies. There’s nothing you could not get from a medical viewpoint now.”
The pampered gamers even had entry to Novak Djokovic’s elaborate regeneration pod, which the Serb fortunately shared together with his rivals at Melbourne Park.
Apparently it was an enormous hit among the many enjoying group.
For all of the success of the occasion, although, Tiley is conscious of the adverse noise round scheduling.
He dominated out introducing a Wimbledon-style midnight curfew or bringing the night time periods ahead, however mentioned measures to hurry up the sport have to be addressed by international tennis chiefs.
“We won’t begin earlier than seven due to the information in Australia so that you rule that out,” Tiley mentioned.
“And one factor that we are able to by no means do is predict the size of a match.
“You are not going to assume Coco (Gauff) goes to play for three-and-a-half hours (as in her quarterfinal with Marta Kostyuk).
“So we additionally try to put schedules on what we predict our matches will go to.”
Tiley mentioned officers would subsequent 12 months take a look at attempting to “tighten” instances that matches begin, but in addition mentioned the game’s chiefs ought to overview using the shot clock.
“Generally the shot clock begins method too late,” he mentioned. “That ought to be tightened up.
“Additionally, as a sport we have to contemplate — once more — not having lets. Having lets added 15 hours to the match throughout all occasions.
“So there might be tweaks subsequent 12 months, however you are still going to get that one-off loopy scenario the place a match finishes at three within the morning.”
AAP
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