“Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitsipas twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos[sic] to fly into space. Interesting,” Murraytweeted at the time.

Still,there has to be some flexibility. The two men played for the best part of six hours. It was 3am. Conditions were cool on Thursday but this being a Melbourne summer it could have easily been up to 30 degrees. Let the man use the bathroom.

You would think the intense reaction from players would force organisers at Tennis Australia to reconsider their approach to late-night matches. But judging by chief executive and tournament director Craig Tiley’s remarks on Friday morning,you shouldn’t hold your breath.

“At this point,there’s no need to alter the schedule,” he told Nine,the owner of this masthead. “We will always look at it when we do the[tournament] debrief.[But] we’ve got to fit those matches in the 14 days,so you don’t have many options.”

He’s right,in a way:late matches happen every year,the dogs bark,and the caravan moves on. Last night didn’t even break an Australian Open record. These days we look back and laugh about the tournament’s latest finishing match of all time,Lleyton Hewitt’s2008 defeat of Marcos Baghdatis,that concluded at 4.34am.

Everyone remembers the statistic. But who actually remembers the match? A few reporters who were paid to stay up and watch it. But normal fans,with jobs to go to the next day? Unlikely.

Organisers rightly point out these scheduling oddities are never intended but result from delays earlier in the day. This time,the late start of the night session was compounded by an abnormally long match. A men’s game starting at 10.20pm would normally be over by 1am or so.

Moving or suspending the match - especially when you don’t know it’s going to go for six hours - would have hugely angered fans who paid to see two games of tennis. That hardly seems like the right call either.

Having said that,the Australian Open — known as the “happy slam” because the players love it — has a reputation for crazily late games. Judging by how some,including Murray,reacted to this latest instalment,it might be starting to become a problem.

We can grin and bear it,as organisers insist we should,but we also want ridiculously good tennis matches to be seen,heard and appreciated. That’s difficult when it happens at 4am.

Watch all the summer of tennis action,including the Australian Open,live on Channel Nine,9Gem and9Now.