Players say conditions are faster this year in Australia, but matches are still getting longer
The average length of matches at the Australian Open has risen significantly in 2024, in both the men’s and women’s events
Daniil Medvedev at the 2024 Australian Open (Virginie Bouyer/Panoramic)
For some reason, players are notoriously bad judges when it comes to the speed of courts. Ask one and they’ll tell you it’s faster than last year; ask another and they’ll say the opposite. John Isner once told a room of journalists he never really understood why clay was considered slow.
But at this year’s Australian Open, there seems to have been a consensus that conditions are faster than last year. Maybe it’s down to the windy conditions which have seen the ball flying around on most days; maybe it’s the courts themselves.
But they’ve also been saying that the balls are slow, that they fluff up quickly and that they become harder and harder to put away for a winner.
And it’s that last statistic that rings true the most of all. Opta Stats Perform have been charting all sorts of stats and data from this year’s matches and one thing is clear: matches this year are taking longer than ever.
The data above is up to date going into Monday’s play. On average, each women’s match is taking one hour, 45 minutes, longer than in any year over the past 10 years (the span of the data). In 2016, it was one hour, 34 minutes and while it’s varied a little in the past decade, this year’s figure is seven minutes longer than any previous year. (The data refers to matches in which at least one set is completed).
Three matches have gone longer than three hours, with Iga Swiatek’s win over Danielle Collins the longest of all at three hours, 14 minutes. And 39 matches have lasted more than two hours. Only nine were shorter than an hour, with the quickest being the win of Anastasia Zakharova over Kaja Juvan.
In the men’s event, 16 matches have lasted four hours or more and 55 have gone on for more than three hours. The longest match is the one between Daniel Elahi Galan and Jason Kubler, which took four hours, 59 minutes and the shortest is Taylor Fritz’s one hour, 28-minute demolition of Hugo Gaston.
According to Opta, the average men’s match this year is two hours, 57 minutes. As you can see from the table above, that’s five minutes longer per match than any year in the past decade.
Now whether that’s because contests are tighter, with players more closely matched, it’s hard to tell. Perhaps it’s because of the bathroom breaks that have become commonplace in the sport in the past few years and which seem to be getting longer and longer.
Whatever the reason, the extra time on court means extra wear and tear on the body, which doesn’t help when the sport wants its stars to play as long as possible at the top level.
Hopefully the tournament will look in detail at these figures come the end of the tournament and decide to do something about it. But for now, the trend is clear; longer matches.
