Tennis star stuck in Toronto traffic so long he had time to take a nap

Travelling around the world to a new tournament seemingly every week, tennis stars get a chance to see parts of the globe most people will never get an opportunity to.

But at the new 12-day format of the National Bank Open in Toronto and Montreal, some of the tournament’s biggest names have opted to choose catching up on sleep over sightseeing.

“I’ve been playing until 2 a.m., and then waking up at like 2 p.m.,” American star Taylor Fritz said earlier this week. “There’s been absolutely no time to do anything… I get back to the hotel at 2 a.m. I finished my match the other night at 1:30 a.m. So, not much time for anything. I think all I can do is sleep as much as possible, come to the courts, practice, do what I’ve got to do, play my matches, and get my meals in, and that’s about it.”

With the tournament taking place at Sobeys Stadium on York University campus, the northwest Toronto location is a bit of a hike from the downtown five-star hotels that many of the tennis players are staying in.

For finalist Karen Khachanov, he’s been finding the time to catch some shut-eye whenever he can, including on the way to some of his matches.

“Yeah, to be honest, first part of the tournament it was different, because I was playing [in the] first match always at 11 [a.m.], so I had to go to sleep earlier, I had to wake up earlier. Having traffic here coming to the site, one hour every day, I was sleeping in the car,” the Russian star told Offside on Wednesday night after advancing to the final.

Khachanov entered the tournament as the No. 11 seed, playing either first or second in the day session in his first three matches.

“But then, from quarterfinals actually, the schedule changed completely, 180 degrees, and I had late matches at 7 p.m. or second after 7. So actually, I had these long days, and I tried to go to sleep later, I tried to wake up later. So, yeah, two completely different tournaments, I would say, during the same event.”

Khachanov takes on Ben Shelton in Thursday night’s final, with it set to begin at 7:30 p.m. ET. One can only hope that he’ll get enough shut-eye to be in his best form on the evening.

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