Jordan Thompson declared tournament 'wokest ever'

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Players at the Australian Open have expressed frustration with new rules making it easier for tennis fans to see more of the action, with one calling it the "wokest tournament ever".

Transcript

00:00 This is something that the Australian Open organisers are hoping to enhance the spectator

00:07 experience and get them to see a little bit more of the action during these tennis matches.

00:12 And that's because prior to this what we've seen is that spectators, if you leave the

00:17 arena because you want to go to the restroom or you might want to get a snack or a drink,

00:22 you actually have to wait until the change of ends before you're let back in. So that's

00:26 normally after at least two games and can be around ten minutes or even longer if we

00:31 see a couple of those really long rallies. And at the change of ends that's also the

00:35 time when the players get to have a little bit of a sit and regroup and also get themselves

00:39 a drink as well. But what we're seeing at the moment at the Australian Open this year

00:44 is that spectators are being allowed at the end of every game. And it might be a little

00:49 bit hard to pick up the audio from that on-court microphone but he was basically saying, "Really?

00:54 You've got to be kidding me. This is the wokest tournament ever." And we've also heard from

00:59 the top seed in the men's draw, of course, the defending champion Novak Djokovic. And

01:04 he was saying that this also caught him by surprise as well. And he made those comments

01:09 after his four-setter game against the Croat team Dino Prismic back on Sunday night. This

01:16 is what he had to say about having spectators come in at the end of each game. And he was

01:21 a little bit perhaps more diplomatic than our Ozzy.

01:25 Look, I mean, I understand the motive behind it is to enhance and improve the experience

01:35 of our fans. So we do play for fans. We want fans to have a great, thrilling experience.

01:44 But at the same time, all my career, all my life, I've been used to some kind of atmosphere

01:51 and then when that changes, it kind of messes up, it distracts you a bit.

01:57 Novak Djokovic there talking about the fact that for some people, if they're in the zone,

02:02 Melissa, you can really throw you off your game, I guess, if you're starting to see some

02:07 of those distractions and might lose that really important momentum. But this rule is

02:12 certainly going to be put to the test on day three here at Melbourne Park. We've already

02:17 seen huge crowds for the first two days, well over 80,000 each day. So there are definitely

02:24 going to be a lot of spectators that are wanting to get into those arenas to be able to see

02:28 things as quickly as possible. Now we have heard from the CEO of Tennis Australia, Craig

02:33 Tiley. He actually denies that there has actually been a rule change here. He says it's simply

02:39 a matter of getting those ushers to get people in as quickly as possible. And he mentioned

02:44 that that meant that if you get into the arena after the end of a game, then you really need

02:50 to just take whatever seat you can as quickly as possible so as to minimise that distraction.

02:55 So a little bit of a disconnect between the players and what the organisers are hoping

03:00 to do. But at the end of the day, there is plenty of action here on day three. First

03:05 up we've got the World Women number one, Iga Svantec, as well as six Australian players,

03:12 including Tanasi Kokanakis, we've got also Isla Tomljanovic and also Max Purcell as well

03:19 taking to the court.

03:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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