Novak Djokovic: Boris Becker slams the French Open over the Serb’s late finish

Tennis legend Boris Becker has criticised the French Open after Novak Djokovic defeated Lorenzo Musetti in the latest finish in the tournament’s history.

The six-time Grand Slam champion asserted that the match being played so late causes a “distortion of the tournament”, while expressing his respect to both players.

Djokovic overcame Musetti in a five-set thriller in the third round at Roland Garros , with the match starting on Saturday night and ending at 3:07am on Sunday morning.

The night-session match started over two hours after the planned time due to the contest between Grigor Dimitrov and Zizou Bergs being moved to Court Philippe-Chatrier and being completed first. The third round match, which Dimitrov won in four sets, had started the previous day but not been finished due to rain delays.

6 tennis matches that finished after 3am: Andy Murray v Thanasi Kokkinakis at 04:05am

Djokovic will face Francisco Cerundolo in the fourth round of the French Open on Monday as he continues his title defence and bid for a fourth crown at the Paris Major.

Becker , who coached the great Serbian from 2014 to 2016, took issue with the fact the two players were forced to play so late.

“I have the greatest respect for Djokovic for playing tennis until three o’clock – the same goes for Musetti,” the former world No 1 said on Eurosport Germany’s Matchball Becker show .

“But in my opinion that’s too late and a distortion of the tournament. By the time the players get to rest, it’s seven or eight in the morning.

“You can simply forget about the day off after that. There’s hardly any rest for the players and I don’t think that’s right.

“What would have happened if Djokovic and Musetti had said after the second set that they wanted to stop and continue playing the next day? I can’t imagine that the tournament organisers would have kicked them out.”

Djokovic refused to be drawn on the decision to move the Dimitrov-Bergs match to Court Philippe-Chatrier before his clash with Musetti.

“I knew you guys were going to ask me that. Look, I don’t want to get into it. I have my opinions, but I think there are great things to talk about instead,” the world No 1 said in his post-match press conference.

“Both Lorenzo’s and my performances stood out, I don’t want to be talking about scheduling I think somethings could have been handled a different way.

“But there’s beauty as well, I guess, winning a match at 3:30am… If it’s the last one of the tournament. But it’s not, so I’m going to have to switch on all of my young genes and try to recover as soon as possible.”

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