Novak Djokovic says broadcasters are in control of the Australian Open schedule, after late finishes plagued the Tuesday evening session despite two straight-sets finishes.

Jannik Sinner beat Andrey Rublev in his three-set quarter-final, but the match still stretched to just before 1.30am at Melbourne Park, on a long evening on Rod Laver Arena.

After Djokovic’s victory over Taylor Fritz took almost four hours and stretched into the evening session, and Aryna Sabalenka had beaten Barbora Krejčíková in two sets, Sinner and Fritz didn’t start until close to 11pm.

Fritz said afterwards playing in a late match and then a day session in the following round can be a disadvantage.

“It just screws up your whole clock,” he said. “If you have to turn around and play in, like, the afternoon in any of the other days, it just completely messes your sleep schedule.”

Djokovic said he and Sinner would have two full days to prepare for the semi-final, which is scheduled for Friday, but late finishes are “not ideal”.

After finishing his match in a relatively swift two hours and 39 minutes, Sinner said he was “quite confident” he would have enough time to recover.

Organisers have scheduled the singles quarterfinals on Wednesday to start one hour earlier than Tuesday, in an apparent attempt to limit how much the day session bleeds into the night.

Djokovic said scheduling has become a “hot topic” and suggested tournament organisers could plan fewer matches on Rod Laver Arena or hold them in one ongoing session.

But “in the end of the day”, he said, the schedule would be determined by TV broadcasters.

“They are the ones drawing the line and saying, we want to see this player at that session or et cetera,” he said.

“TV broadcasting channels have the biggest power. We know that. Which is not unusual because, you know, they are the ones that are giving us the stage, as well, the platform to reach out to millions of people around the world, which is great for us.

“It’s hard to say what the best scenario is in this case.”

The prospect of moving the later matches was raised by organisers with the players, according to Sabalenka.

“There was the possibility that one of our matches will be moved, but we just decided to see how the Novak and Fritz match will go,” she said.

“If it’s gonna be too long, then we agreed for the possibility to be moved. But Novak won third and fourth sets, so we just went on court as normal.”

Sinner said there was uncertainty over where his match would take place for half an hour. He said would always want to play on Rod Laver Arena.

“When you play centre court [it] is more [of a] privilege because you can feel it with the walk-on and everything.”

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