Explained: What caused scheduling nightmare at Australian Open that delayed matches for more than 4 hours?

The Australian Open faced a scheduling disaster, with nearly half a day of play cancelled due to Melbourne's signature four-seasons-in-one weather. The rain prevented play on outside courts at the Australian Open compounded a scheduling backlog, making some players unhappy about it.

Melbourne was facing extreme heat till Tuesday but on Wednesday the rains poured in the city causing a postponement of 4.5 hours in several matches, including mid-matches in many cases.

The weather bureau issued a squall warning for Port Phillip Bay and a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of central Victoria, as a cool change sweeps through Melbourne after days of high temperatures and fires.

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The organisers at the AO 2023 thought of packing all the delayed matches into the Wednesday schedule only, which caused some matches to be stretched close to midnight. Plenty of players were far from happy with this new scheduling.

How the new scheduling due to rains caused delays?

The play was due to start at 11 am (GMT) but persistent rains hampered the play pushing the matches to 1 pm. But only matches on the three main stadiums with roofs were able to begin on time.

47 of the scheduled 64 matches wereyet to be completed after a delay between 2 pm and 5 pm due to intense heat that reached over 37 degrees. When play was halted again around 8 pm, there were still over 30 first-round matches left to be played.

Tournament organisers eventually made a call after 9 pm to cancel most women’s singles matches that were yet to be played, moving them to Wednesday.

Three of the top seeds, Iga Swiatek, Jessica Pegula, and Maria Sakkari, all finished their second-round matches at the roofed courts early on Wednesday but the other 24 women couldn't even complete their first-round matches.

Briton Jamie Murray, a top doubles player and brother of Andy Murray hit out on Twitter about Wednesday's schedule being released so late on Tuesday evening. During the changes in the schedule late in the evening, many players already went to sleep totally unaware of when they would start the other day.

"11 am start on outside courts. Players arrive approx 8-8:30 am. The schedule was released at 11:30 pm. Unfair", he wrote on Twitter.

Belgian veteran Kirsten Flipkens also voiced her concern.

Tennis writer Jose Morgado also shared similar sentiments and wrote on Twitter, "Past midnight in Melbourne and no order of play for tomorrow apart from the three biggest stadiums".

With temperatures expected to remain high for the rest of the afternoon, tournament organisers wereforced to fit in all of the first-round matches that caused some players playing matches till late in the night.

Earlier this month, Australian Open chief executive Craig Tiley lashed out at critics who demanded that the tournament be rescheduled when temperatures were not at their highest.

"You talk to every player, this is the season. It starts in January. It starts here in Australia."

"But Australia is the summer, Australia is January and this event is, from the players’ perspective, one of their favourite places to play."

"They’re coming here earlier, we’re now seeing players here for six weeks, for seven weeks and the preparation for the Australian summer is very normalised, they know what they need to do."

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