easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. That’s not great. “I know when I went out to hit before the match, the conditions at 2.30–3pm were very, very tough. Whether it’s safe or not, I don’t know. There’s been some issues in other sports with players having heart attacks.” Caroline Wozniacki said: “I put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit underneath the plastic. So, you know it was warm.” John Isner, who retired from his first-round match with a right ankle injury, said: “It was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are done. That’s what it’s like.” The defending champion Victoria Azarenka took the same line. “It felt pretty hot, like you’re dancing in a frying pan or something like that,” she said. The tournament’s “extreme heat” contingency plan was put into force for women’s matches on Tuesday, allowing an extra ten-minute break between the second and third sets. Under a change to the rules for 2014, however, the decision on whether to stop matches at the tournament is now at the discretion of the tournament director, Wayne McKewen. Rather than use the raw Celsius readings to assess the heat, organizers prefer to