{"id":351199,"date":"2025-12-16T07:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351199\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:03:17","slug":"the-mens-tennis-tour-is-adding-a-heat-rule-like-the-one-the-women-have-had-for-more-than-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351199\/","title":{"rendered":"The men\u2019s tennis tour is adding a heat rule like the one the women have had for more than 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ATP Tour is adding a rule to address extreme heat<\/a> during men\u2019s professional tennis matches<\/a> that will allow for 10-minute breaks during best-of-three-sets singles matches starting next season and is similar to what was put in place on the women\u2019s circuit more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

The ATP Board\u2019s approval of the new policy, announced Monday, strengthens \u201cprotections for players competing in extreme conditions,\u201d the tour said.<\/p>\n

During the Shanghai Masters in October, some players called for the ATP to introduce guidance to help them in cases of extreme heat and humidity. Defending champion Jannik Sinner stopped playing a match there because of severe leg cramps; 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic lamented the conditions after vomiting during a victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s brutal when you have over 80% humidity day after day,\u201d Djokovic said then, \u201cparticularly for the guys when they\u2019re playing during the day with heat, with sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Associated Press analysis in 2023 showed that the average high temperatures felt during the U.S. Open and the three other major tennis tournaments steadily had gotten higher and more dangerous in recent decades, reflecting the climate change<\/a> that has created record heat waves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WTA first established a rule to protect players in the heat in 1992. The new ATP rule is based on the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), which takes into account the heat, humidity and other factors. When the WBGT reaches at least 30.1 degrees Celsius (about 86.2 Fahrenheit) in one of the opening two sets of a best-of-three match, either player is allowed to request a 10-minute suspension of play.<\/p>\n

If the WBGT exceeds 32.2 degrees Celsius (about 90 Fahrenheit), the match will be halted.<\/p>\n

During the breaks, players can change clothing, shower, hydrate or use other ways to cool off \u2014 under the supervision of ATP medical staff \u2014 and they also can receive coaching.<\/p>\n

That ATP said the rule is aimed at \u201csafeguarding player health, while also improving conditions for spectators, officials, ball persons, and tournament staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grand Slam tournaments set their own heat policies. The U.S. Open, French Open and Wimbledon also have rules based on WBGT readings, as does the tennis competition at the Olympics, which is run by the International Tennis Federation. The Australian Open goes by something called the Heat Stress Scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ATP Tour is adding a rule to address extreme heat during men\u2019s professional tennis matches that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-351199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}