Shanghai Masters has been catastrophic: a casacade of walkovers has cast a shadow over the Masters 1000. Players like Casper Ruud, Tomas Machac, David Goffin, Terrence Atmane, Hamad Medjedovic Wu Yibing, and the higher ranked player, Jannik Sinner, retired mid game, suffocating due to the heat and humidity. Novak Djokovic vomited several times during changeovers.
Temperatures reached around 30ºC and humidity sometimes reached 80%. Holger Rune was heard asking an official if players were expected to "die on court". But it is not the only tennis competition where players have complained about the extreme conditions they are forced to play: in Cincinnati, Arthur Rinderknech collapsed on court during a match last August.
As a result, ATP has confirmed that they will study and implement a heat policy. "Additional measures including the implementation of an official heat policy are currently being evaluated in consultation with players, tournaments, and medical experts", ATP said to Reuters.
What could heat policies look like in tennis?
Heat policies are common in other sports that expose their athletes to extreme heat for prolonged period of times, like cycling. Last weekend, the heat policy in Formula 1 was implemented for the first time ever in Singapore, allowing drivers to wear cooling vests with tubes where cool air flows (if they choose not to, they would have to add some extra weight to the car as to not have unfair advantage).
It remains to be seen how heat policies would be implemented in tennis. The main solution would be to... simply not play when heat or humidity is too high or do it indoors (but that would alter play conditions between matches). ATP says they already implements several measures in cases of extreme heat, to help protect player health during competition.
What do you think ATP can do to alleviate the heat and humidity in competitions like Shanghai Masters?