Oz Open Screws Djokovic

What's that? A little tough on the way down? Novak Djokovic had to retire against Andy Roddick last night, admitting defeat to a man who previously called him out for complaining about questionable ailments.

Djokovic started out on fire, but in the end couldn't match the heat of the court. ESPN's courtside thermometer measured the on-court temperature at an astounding 142 degrees (61 C). What should have been a thrilling quarterfinal turned into an ugly retirement as Djokovic quit trailing 7-6(3) 4-6 2-6 1-2. Why didn't they close the roof? How much hotter did it need to get before the excessive heat policy kicked in?

The Australian Open Extreme Heat Policy (EHP) will be applied at the Referee’s discretion and may be altered at any time.

At the Referee’s discretion, when the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature only (WBGT) is equal to or above the pre determined threshold, the Referee may suspend the commencement of any further matches on outside courts.

Any matches currently in progress will continue until the end of the current set. At the completion of the set, play will be suspended.

Where play in any match commences outdoors (or with a roof open) and the WBGT temperature is equal to or exceeds the pre determined threshold, the match will continue until the completion of the set. At the end of the set a decision may be made by the Referee to close the roof for the remainder of the match and the following matches, when the EHP is still in effect.

A roof will only be closed because of extreme heat if a decision has been made by the Referee to suspend the completion or commencement of matches on the outdoor courts.

This is slightly unclear. It's left up to the discretion of the Chair Umpire, but it also states that there is a pre determined threshold. Surely 61 C is over that threshold? I couldn't find an answer on the website, but a report from '05 states that the policy goes into effect when the temperature is 35 C.

I'm going to call a spade a spade: Tennis Australia really screwed over Djokovic, the defending champion. You can make the argument that Djokovic wasn't fit enough, that the 15 lbs Andy lost enabled him to withstand the heat better, but I'm not buying it. Djokovic is a fit player, and we've seen him go the distance before. Yesterday he lasted only a set before his level plummeted.

Djokovic's previous match started after 11pm, and 4 sets later he finished off Baghdatis at 2:30am. By the time he finished post-match activities, press, cool down, etc, he didn't go to bed until 5:30am. There's just no way you can properly recover that quickly to play in the kind of extreme heat he faced Roddick in yesterday. Djokovic requested a night match against Roddick but was rejected (I think a night match would have only been fair). Federer is hugely popular Down Under so TV mandated that he play in the prime-time slot. The least Tennis Australia could have done was close the roof. Let it be noted that Djokovic did *not* make this same argument in his press conference, and instead chalked this up to not being as fit as Andy.

Listen, I'm no Djokovic apologist. And I give plenty of credit to Roddick for grinding Djokovic down. If Djokovic had to play me, for example, I'm pretty sure he would've been ok, even in the 140 weather. Roddick's new quickness allowed him to get to some very impressive drop-shots and send winners back over the net. At the end of the day though, this was less about tennis and more about survival, and I don't think Tennis Australia did right by Novak.