All morning and into the early afternoon, eyes were on the meter as it slowly rose, along with temperature and the radiant heat from the sun that felt increasingly scorching. This happens in Melbourne when the wind stops blowing off the seas to the south of the waterfront city and starts coming from the desert regions to the north. It can feel a little like existing with a hair dryer blowing in your face.
Sinner started visibly suffering from cramps around 2 p.m. Players are not allowed to take extended medical timeouts, which can last about 10 minutes, purely for cramping or loss of conditioning. The rules limit treatment for cramps to one 3-minute on-court treatment and then further massages and consultations, within the limits of the 90-second changeovers.
Sinner stayed within those rules. The only time he was penalized was when he took extra time before serving to consult with his coaching box and received a time violation from chair umpire Fergus Murphy.
His coach, Darren Cahill, told him to take the penalty and survive the third set. and then he would get the 10-minute break the rules called for. It turned out even better than that. The roof came over, and the conditions changed.
Sinner and Spizzirri were not the only people in the stadium, nor the other courts that saw roofs move across or play get suspended. Ball kids, umpires, tournament staff and fans also had to exist in 100-degree temperatures; extreme heat does not only affect the two people at the center of the court.
For Spizzirri, the negation of his physical advantage over Sinner would have stung. The Italian was not cramping in isolation from the heat, but also the intensity of Spizzirri’s play. In cooler temperatures, its impact was lessened; by the same token, the hot conditions gave Spizzirri a boost.
The heat rule is ultimately an objective limit designed for safety. Its subjective impact on a tennis match is harder to quantify, and will benefit different players in different matchups this tournament, and in the future.
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