ROASTING PLAYERS TURN UP HEAT ON OFFICIALS OVER TOURNAMENT DANGER

ALIZE Cornet feared she would faint and labelled scorching conditions at Melbourne Park dangerous after Australian Open organisers failed to halt play for a second straight day.

Tournament officials were widely criticised for deciding against enacting the extreme heat policy as temperatures neared 40C on Thursday, with six-time champion Novak Djokovic and “dying” French star Gael Monfils among those to speak out.

Yesterday, the temperature peaked at 40.2C just after 2pm, with the situation made tougher for players by hot, gusting northerly winds.

Cornet became distressed early in the second set of her third-round encounter with Belgium’s Elise Mertens. She slumped to the court behind the baseline on Hisense Arena serving at 1-1 and was attended to by medical staff during an injury time-out after she lost the game.

Cornet, pictured left, recovered to play out the match but was beaten 7-5, 6-4 before praising the response of the medical team. But the Frenchwoman called for the extreme heat benchmarks to be lowered.

“The limit of not playing the matches is really high . . . I think this limit should be a little bit lower,” Cornet said. “Playing in those conditions is not nice for anyone . . . for the players it’s incredibly tough.

“I would never give up . . . but you push your body so hard . . . you almost feel like you’re on the edge.

“We’re high-level athletes capable of pushing the limits very far and sometimes too far — that’s why I say that it could be dangerous.”

The drama comes after Monfils became distressed during his secondround loss to Djokovic.

Monfils claimed he had put his health at risk by remaining on court.