Arguably, no player in the history of French Open knows the courts in Paris as well as Rafael Nadal does and he was left baffled as to why the lights inside Court Philippe Chatrier were switched on despite Monday’s match being played in bright sunshine and in temperatues of 25 degrees.
Third seed Nadal downed 19-year-old Jannik Sinner 7-5, 6-3, 6-0 and goes on to face 10th-seeded Diego Schwartzman of Argentina who he defeated in the semi-finals last year.
Nadal has now won 104 matches at Roland Garros against just two defeats since his 2005 debut while Monday’s victory extended his run of consecutive sets won to 35.
“I don’t know why they put the lights on that early. We have been playing without lights here in Roland Garros for forever,” said Nadal.
“At 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon we have been playing tennis until 9:00 in the evening without lights.
“They say it’s because of TV. But my answer is we used to have TV before we had the lights on. I saw plenty of matches here, and from the TV the quality of the image was great without the lights.”
The 35-year-old Spanish world number three is seeded to face Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.
(With AFP inputs)