Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina is thru to the Australian Open semi finals after a 6-2 6-4 win over Jelena Ostapenko however followers have been left surprised by a second from the primary set.
With Rybakina already up a break at 3-1 within the first set, a forecast bathe hit Melbourne and compelled the pair off the court docket for 25 minutes.
Rod Laver Arena was drenched and when the roof came visiting, it needed to be dried.
We’re in a world the place self-driving automobiles are on the horizon, AI runs most of our lives and there aren’t even linespeople on the Australian Open — they’ve been changed by an digital line decide.
But as a substitute of getting a sooner method of drying the court docket, as a substitute the ballkids have as soon as once more come to the rescue, drying the court docket on their arms and knees with towels.
As the actual fact the ballkids are unpaid volunteers, notably when there was a match that completed simply after 4am and the ballkids are, properly, children, it as soon as once more highlights the difficulty.
Newscorp reported that Tennis Australia defined it was the quickest option to get play going.
Fans had been perplexed nonetheless that this was certainly the actual fact within the 12 months 2023.
Controversy erupted earlier within the match when social media customers found that the ballkids weren’t actually paid for his or her work on the Australian Open.
Around 2500 children apply to be ballkids yearly, with lower than one in 5 of them really profitable.
Those who do make the lower are then working underneath strict situations and underneath torrid climate situations that Melbourne throws up in January.
A whopping prize pool of $AUD76.5 million was on the desk for these collaborating, up 3.4 per cent on 2022.
And it’s not like no ballkids receives a commission. Ballkids working on the US Open are paid $15 per hour whereas at Wimbledon they’re given a flat fee of $351 per week.
The situations had been laid naked most clearly after the 4am end within the 5 hour, 45 minute Andy Murray-Thanasi Kokkinakis epic.
After the match, three-time grand slam winner Murray declared: “If my child was a ball kid for a tournament, they’re coming home at 5am in the morning, as a parent, I’m snapping at that.
“It’s not beneficial for them. It’s not beneficial for the umpires, the officials. I don’t think it’s amazing for the fans. It’s not good for the players.
“We talk about it all the time. It’s been spoken about for years. When you start the night matches late and have conditions like that, these things are going to happen.”
