Most sports live and die by the clock.

The siren signals the end of a footy match, and three short blasts of the whistle signal the end of play in football. The clock tells us who wins a race, or who breaks a record at least.

Even cricket — famously unhurried — uses the timer to determine the start of play, the stop and even dismissals in between.

Tennis, by contrast, has historically been relatively untouched by timing devices playing a key role in the game. The clock mostly sits as a witness to tennis, and not an active participant. When it has got involved, it often gets in the way.

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Increasingly the clock has helplessly ticked by as the long showcase nights grow longer into morning with matches easing into the early hours. The once rare “epic” has become commonplace — often finished in front of dwindling crowds.

After coming back from two sets down to win a 4 hour, 23 minute thriller over Emil Ruusuvuori in the second round, Daniil Medvedev was open about the issues with the long games and late-night finishes.

“What is it like, 3.40 in the morning? I — honestly guys — I would not be here! If I would be a tennis fan I would come, I’d be at 1 (AM) and I’d be like ‘let’s go home, we’re going to catch the end of the match on TV’, then watch 30 minutes then go to bed.”

The Australian Open has seen increasingly longer matches over the past few years despite incremental changes designed to shorten the length of matches and the operating hours of Melbourne Park.

In 1997 there was a point every 33 seconds of match time across men’s singles matches at the Open. By last year that time had blown out to 44 seconds per point — a 33 per cent increase in time taken.

It’s not just in Melbourne that matches are dragging on, but all around the tennis world. No matter how you cut it, the game lengthens by the year, each point slower on average than the last.

So what is causing the slowing nature of the matches, and can it be changed?

The evolving game

Despite tennis having the reputation of a game that has stood the test of time, tennis has evolved relatively dramatically in the Open era.

When Rod Laver won his second Grand Slam in 1969 he did so in an era before any tiebreakers. “Rocket” wielded a wooden racquet laced with natural gut strings with a nine-inch head, beating all comers anywhere — but mostly on grass.

Since then new surfaces and technology have come to the fore. Players got bigger and fitter.

Those once wooden racquets became titanium, graphite and carbon. Stars like Steffi Graf were able to generate increasing amounts of power and topspin by swinging a bigger racquet with a lighter weight.

Brazilian former number one Gustavo Kuerten shepherded perhaps the biggest evolution of the modern era. Kuerten won the 1997 French Open using polyester strings from Luxilion, then mostly known as a medical supplies company.

Over time most players moved either partially or entirely onto polyester strings, with only a few (such as Roger Federer) retaining any partial use of natural strings in their set-up.

Polyester strings, combined with a bigger racquet head, can help players generate purring, spinning balls that dip into the court that players of generations past could only dream of.

This has encouraged the era of the baseliner — players who do most of their work from the back of the court. This has meant longer rallies with players sliding across the court to chase down ball after ball.

The contrast with eras previous is clear.

On the first day of 1975, John Newcombe won the Australian Open, jumping the net on the Kooyong grass after defeating Jimmy Connors. That net was Newcombe’s biggest strength in the match, with the Australian coming to the net on 109 of his 126 legal serves.

The match lasted just shy of two hours and 50 minutes, with the two players hitting 554 shots in 273 points across the journey.

Contrast that with last year’s three-set Australian Open Final. When Novak Djokovic finally vanquished Stefanos Tsitsipas, almost three hours had passed. Djokovic and Tsitsipas rarely left the baseline, hitting the ball a combined 839 times across 206 points.

They came into the net a combined 30 times. Players these days rarely do, regardless of the surface. The modern game generally has more aces than generations past, but also more longer rallies.

Despite this real change in game style, there may be another element that is to blame for lengthening matches.

A secret thief

These technological and stylistic changes are often cited by pundits as being the reason for the ever-lengthening matches. However, in recent years the data indicates that rally length might not be behind the slower pace of modern tennis.

Rally length doesn’t appear to be increasing by enough to account for the increased time in matches. Each extra shot in a rally takes around a second or two — with the marginal increase in rally length coming nowhere near the extra 11 seconds taken per point.

Instead, it appears the recovery, rituals and routines taking place before and after points and games are eating up extra time across matches. Research undertaken by Stephanie Kovalchik indicates that a mere fraction of each match is taken up by the ball being in play.

Despite the introduction of a serve timer — requiring players to serve the ball within 25 seconds — this time loss seems to be increasing year on year.

In fact the introduction of the serve time may be increasing the time taken per point. The previous rule stated that only 20 seconds were allowed before a serve had to be attempted with the rule rarely enforced.

After the introduction of the new timer, it appears that the time between points has increased. A potential reason for this is that the timer isn’t automated — instead it has to be activated by the chair umpire.

Is there a solution, or even a problem?

While the Australian Open plays out in front of captive audiences worldwide, tennis administrators are grappling behind closed doors with the future direction of the game.

The state of the on-court product also merits consideration if such a radical move is even on the drawing board.

Tennis administrators haven’t been shy at trying to address its pace of play problems over recent years. The introduction of fifth-set tiebreakers has been controversial in some corners.

It is hard to see wholesale changes like the adoption of “Fast4” tennis or no-advantage games being introduced in the short to medium term.

Instead, tweaks around the edges are more able to deliver real results to the length of matches and the pace of play.

A reduced serve timer would likely shave real time off the game. Reducing the serve timer to 20 seconds would save around 20 minutes per match on average — a real and significant difference. A further reduction to 15 seconds would return match length to about what it was 25 years ago.

Technological devolution — similar to what has recently been implemented in golf — may also cause slightly shorter rallies. Reducing the amount of spin and incentivising power may draw players to the net again. It is, however, unlikely to cause dramatically shorter matches.

It’s also hard to work out the impact of the longer matches on the general public.

This year’s Australian Open has seen record attendances for its first week of play, with crowds lapping up the action through the day and night.

But those numbers only tell part of the story. Last year’s Australian Open saw a decrease in TV audiences by 40 per cent on the year prior. While TV ratings have been up when Australians such as Alex de Minaur have played, they are down or flat on days when Australians have been absent.

And the record crowds in the day and early evening disappear as the night turns to early morning.

If tennis wants to change its late-night addiction, changing another clock might just be the answer.