NEW YORK: The US Open crowd may or may not be loudest in tennis, but it's in the running for the title of 'slowest to settle down between points and games'.
They take an eternity. Blame it on the carnival atmosphere - food and drinks. And selfies.
After almost four hours on the court Matteo Berrettini, who put out a resurgent Andy Murray 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (1), 6-3 in the third round on Friday, told the chair umpire Greg Allensworth that something needed to be done. "We wait for one minute until everybody sits," he said. "We played for four hours and it felt like we were waiting two hours for people to sit down."
Spectators are allowed to return to their seats during changeovers. In the course of a long match, when they leave to get refreshments, the settling down almost never happens. Blame it on the $22 cocktails - Honey Deuce - being the most popular.
Berrettini called the movement in the stands a distraction. "We're following the clock, right?" the 13th seed asked. "The umpire is calling the time. We always have an eye on the clock for time violations. When you're ready to serve, you have to wait 20-25 seconds more because people are sitting down."
The 26-year-old argued that play shouldn't be stalled just because spectators are taking time settling down. "If we're waiting for everybody every time, we're going to lose so much time, especially when we play best-of-five."
The Berrettini-Murray third-round clash was halted briefly as a fan required medical attention, but that was not what the Italian was drawing attention to. "If someone is fainting, we cannot do anything," Berrettini said.
