The organizers of the combined event in Madrid had scheduled two and a half hours for the three games scheduled for Saturday, the two men's semi-finals and the women's final. That's basically okay, even if of course it never starts on time and after the women's final there is also an award ceremony. As is well known, things turned out differently, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic alone occupied Manolo Santana with marching in, warming up and a post-match interview for almost four hours.

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After that, Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula were in no hurry either. And Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas ended their duel after one in the morning. Zverev will cope with this in view of today's meeting with Alcaraz (from 6:30 p.m. live on Sky and in our live ticker), he is more of a night owl than an eleven o'clock starter anyway.

Finals of the 1000s in best-of-five format

The density - and the division - of the program in Madrid was reminiscent of what had been common practice at the US Open for years: that on Saturday the men determined their finalists. And the women play for the title. It was called “Super Saturday” back then, long before any game day in the Bundesliga was sold as such. Of course, the peculiarity in New York City was that the men had to go over five sets in the worst case. And that again on the final Sunday.

The US Open champions of those days were arguably the most tested of the four majors. The fact that the quality of the finals suffered from time to time is another matter. In the meantime, the idea has also prevailed in Flushing Meadows that Grand Slam finalists should be given a day off before the biggest match of the two tournament weeks. In Madrid this was possible for women, but not desired for men. Not to forget: In the past, it was the rule for many 1000s that the winner's trophy was played in best-of-five mode. But that would no longer be compatible with the tightly scheduled tournament calendar.

Here is the individual tableau in Madrid

madrid map