Australian Open 2026 set to remain unchanged despite scheduling criticisms

Australian Open boss Craig Tiley has ruled out any changes to next year's Melbourne Park schedule, ignoring the overwhelming urgings for change.

Scheduling decisions at this year's Australian Open have raised more than a few eyebrows. After another match surpassed the midnight mark on Saturday night, fans and players said enough was enough.

After American Madison Keys shocked the world by dethroning Aryna Sabalenka in a three-set thriller to win the women's singles title, there was still a match to be played on Rod Laver Arena.

The men's doubles final didn't get underway until 11pm, with Harri Heliovaara of Finland and Britain's Henry Patten taking an epic late-night men's doubles final. The sixth seeds lost a first set epic which lasted 87 minutes before pulling through 6-7 (16/18), 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 against Italian third seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori. The match didn't finish until nearly 2am (AEDT) and the decision to schedule the doubles final after the women's singles final drew widespread criticism from pundits, who pointed to the fact Rod Laver Arena was almost entirely empty by the time the match concluded.

Tennis commentator Jose Morgado wrote on X: "The Men's Doubles final will finish around 2am in Melbourne, which is a shame and very poor scheduling tbh ..." Tennis writer Todd Scoullar said: "Men's doubles final doesn't deserve to be starting just before 11pm in a half-empty stadium. Will be 75 per cent empty by the end of the match. Play them on Saturday day session, and let the spectators come in on a ground pass."

It was a message echoed by Vavassori, who used his post-match speech in the post-match ceremony to call for the doubles final to be held in a fan-friendly timeslot. "I think it was a very good match for doubles, hopefully, many people will watch the match from their house and you played unbelievable, so it was a very tight match, but you deserve it," Vavassori said.

And it was hardly the only scheduling issue that left punters scratching their heads at the Aussie Open. Earlier in the tournament Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Nick Kyrgios all started their first-round matches at the exact same time, with those at Melbourne Park facing an impossible choice of which game to watch.

While putting Alexander Zverev on the prime-time evening session on Rod Laver Arena for his early rounds, instead of players who have massive loyal supporter bases such as Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner, was equally puzzling. The scheduling of women's matches in the day session instead of the evening session also drew widespread criticism, with doubles legend Pam Shriver taking to X to ask: "What is going on with AO scheduling?"

However, despite all the criticism and desire for change, on Sunday Tiley ignored all of the concerns raised by players and fans, instead singing the praises of another record tournament and stating he sees no reason to change what is working.

The Tennis Australia boss went on to rule out any changes for next year's tournament, such as introducing alcohol restrictions to combat rowdy crowds or tweaks to the schedule even after disgruntled punters felt short-changed after coughing up astronomical amounts of money for short sessions.

"To change the schedule because you think someone may default wouldn't be a wise thing to do," Tiley told AAP. "I'm not worried about the crowd behaviour. I was at the Davis Cup a couple of months ago in Malaga and no one complained about the crowd behaviour there, and you couldn't hear yourself speak."

"The Australian team were against the wall. It was in Spain, but the Italians were going crazy. So I struggle to understand why people think that's different. That's far worse (behaviour). We want to look more at like the number of fans who come through the gate and the energy and the enjoyment that they're having is at an all-time high."

And incredibly as Tiley announced nothing will be changing in 2026, he said he had listened to fan and player feedback before coming to the conclusion the Aussie Open operated nearly flawlessly.

"The way I assess the tournament is listen to the fan feedback, listen to the player feedback and listen to our team's feedback - and again it's all been exceptional," he said.

"So from the fans' point of view, yes, we've had a record crowd through the gates. We don't focus on it, we focus on the quality of the experience and all our customer satisfaction scores are equal or better than they were last year.

"And on the players' side, again if it's any indication, they thank us publicly, they thank us privately and the number of notes I have or emails or WhatsApp messages saying 'Thank you again', then this is by far the best tournament."