Expected scorcher means schedule changes at AO

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MELBOURNE, Australia – They’re expecting a scorcher of a day on Saturday at the Australian Open, the first one of the tournament so far.

And so, the organizers have made some rare adjustments to the schedule, and are lucky that the singles draw has been whittled down to only needing four courts.

Three of them – Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena and John Cain Arena, have retractable roofs.

The start time – normally 11:30 a.m. on the first two, 11 a.m. on John Cain – will be 10:30 a.m. on all four courts in use for the singles.

Here is the Saturday women’s sked.

’26 AO – Day 7 Women’s Singles OOP

And here is the men’s sked.

’26 AO – Day 7 Men’s Singles OOP

These days, there are only two matches in the day session and two in the evening on those top three court.

But for Saturday, they’ve added a women’s match on Margaret Court Arena, which means two women’s and one men ‘s match for the day session.

That leaves three clashes out there on Kia Arena, which is open and subject to the vagaries of the weather, and potentially halted if it gets so hot they have to stop play.

One – the third one, Mensik v Quinn, is listed at “TBA, not before 6 p.m.”. Which tells you that if things finish quickly somewhere, and there are delays, they might try to get it onto one of the other three courts.

The winner of that one will play the winner of the Novak Djokovic – Botic Van de Zandschulp clash, scheduled for 7 p.m. on Rod Laver Arena.

The top of 40C won’t happen until the very late afternoon, which doesn’t make 37C at 2 p.m. of 39C at 4 p.m. much cooler.

When they stopped play back in 2014, the place turned into a ghost town in about five minutes.

Tennis Australia used to use the “wet bulb temperature” measurement, a combination of heat and humidity, to decide if it was too hot to play/necessary to close the roofs.

They might stll do that. But it’s all a mystery as they’ve adopted a graphic that rates the conditions from one through five.