The Miami Open has stormed into its latter stages, although Novak Djokovic has had to be patient for his quarter-final clash with Sebastian Korda.
In accordance with ATP rules that don’t allow for a match to go on court after 11pm, Djokovic and Korda had their match postponed by one day.
Djokovic is aiming for his 100th ATP Tour title at the Miami Open, where world number one Jannik Sinner is absent due to a doping suspension.
The Serbian has been impressing at the ATP Masters 1000 event, while home fans have been given something to cheer about by the likes of Korda and Taylor Fritz.
That is the same for Jessica Pegula in the WTA 1000 event, which has also produced superb storylines around the rise of Alexandra Eala and the return of Emma Raducanu.
Miami Open blows chance to maximise coverage with press conference policy
But such storylines and many others have undoubtedly not reached the audiences they could have given the mistake the Miami Open has made with media access.
The Tennis Gazette was part of a range of publications that applied for access to press conferences at the tournament.
However, Miami decided that only people on site should be able to cover them, with the promise that transcripts would be available 12 hours after press conferences took place.
That promise, though, has sadly not been kept. Transcripts have been infrequent and often available after a much longer timeframe than promised.
That has led to less coverage of player quotes from across the tournament and less media coverage outside of rights holders. A tournament’s objective should surely be to want to amplify and drive interest in their own product.
Hearing what players have to say after matches really helps fans drive a narrative and create storylines around the tournament, but the Miami Open has made this more difficult than it needs to be.
Want to hear about Emma Raducanu’s thoughts on her defeat to Jessica Pegula? Or indeed Pegula’s own quotes after her win over Raducanu?
Unfortunately neither have been made available as yet. And that has been a story throughout the entire tournament so far, especially with the later matches.
Thankfully Miami are one of the very few tournaments who adopt this policy towards media wanting to cover their event, and fans who are keen to view press conferences to get answers to their questions.
But it is a ruling which surely needs to be looked at for future events, if they want to maximise the coverage of their own tournament across the globe.
Tennis media hugely frustrated with Miami Open press conferences
Notably, it is an issue the wider tennis world has been facing in Miami, but importantly is one that shouldn’t take long to fix.
Sharing his discontent, TennisONE’s Vansh wrote on X: “One of the ways tennis loves to gatekeep is press conferences. Not allowed to video record any type of player interview whatsoever unless you are a rights holder.
“But does the Miami Open upload them on their own YouTube page then? No. Seems like a fantastic way to grow the game…”
And journalist Todd Scoullar concurred, replying: “Correct. Not to mention conferences are regularly shut down after a few questions from the ‘better known journalists’.”
Also agreeing, Myles David of Tuned Into Tennis said: “Yeah that’s not great. You have people who WANT to spread the word of your tournament or event that you actually gave credentialed access to… and then turn around and actively STOP them from sharing content. Doesn’t make sense.”
Such a change would not only help promote the Miami Open itself, but also a sport that could do with such promotion.
For now, however, the major tournament is very much set to finish just as it started in this regard, but hopefully such complaints are heard sooner rather than later.
Receive exclusive tennis news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
