In the 2022 U.S. Open, Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner at Arthur Ashe Stadium in a five-set epic quarterfinal that lasted more than five hours and finished at 2:50 a.m. The historic battle between two future world No. 1s is widely considered one of the best matches of the decade so far. Yet most of America was asleep.
On Saturday morning, Alexander Zverev and Tomás Martín Etcheverry nearly broke that record for the latest U.S. Open finish when they shook hands at 2:35 a.m. on Louis Armstrong Stadium after only a four-set encounter. Just next door in Ashe, Aryna Sabalenka hit her last ball at 1:48 a.m. in a match that didn’t start until after midnight—the latest start in tournament history.
Late, consequential matches are not unique to the U.S. Open. Earlier this year at the French Open, Novak Djokovic ended a five-setter at 3:07 a.m. local time. At the 2024 Australian Open, Daniil Medvedev was on court until 3:39 a.m. for the latest finish in Grand Slam history.
And even when a tennis match finishes at 1:00 a.m., that doesn’t mean the players are tucked in under their covers by 2:00 a.m. During the 2024 French Open, Casper Ruud was active on the social media platform X after 3:00 a.m. local time, leading a fan to ask him why he was still awake.
“I just finished my match 2 hours ago,” Ruud wrote in reply. “After that I have to cool down on the bike for 15 minutes, do press/media, ice bath for 10 minutes, shower, eat and then get treatment/massage. I’m currently at the treatment stage.”
After her third round match in the wee hours, Sabalenka said that she would probably skip treatment and aim to be in bed by 4 a.m. Alexi Popyrin, who upset Djokovic in the match directly before Sabalenka’s, said he didn’t expect to be asleep until 4 or 4:30 a.m.
The U.S. Open did introduce a new policy this year, stating that a match can be moved to a different court if it cannot begin by 11:15 p.m., in order to ensure that “matches conclude at a reasonable hour while minimizing disruptions to the tournament schedule.” That could have come into play on Friday night, as Popyrin and Djokovic battled into a fourth set with Sabalenka’s match still to come.
The tournament referee considered the weather forecast, the pace of play and the players’ preferences in determining whether to move the women’s match to the smaller, outdoor Grandstand. If the men’s match had gone to a fifth set, then the women’s match likely would have been moved, but it didn’t. “Honestly, I would prefer to play on such a beautiful stadium than on the Grandstand,” Sabalenka said.
The policy didn’t impact Zverev’s match, which began before 11:15 p.m. Historically, the latest finishes have been men’s five-set matches that start early and nonetheless run deep into the night. If Zverev hadn’t closed out the fourth set, he would have written into the U.S. Open record books. “In Acapulco I played until 4:55, so I know I have that record,” Zverev said. “I don’t need any more records of late finishes … I’m good.”
“There’s not much that the tournament can do,” Zverev added regarding his late finish. “There’s nothing to blame them for.”
Unlike tennis, most U.S.-centric professional leagues have collectively settled on midnight as a reasonable time for a preeminent sporting event to end.
NFL primetime games begin no later than 8:30 p.m. and rarely last more than three and a half hours. Every 2024 NBA Finals Game was over before midnight. Even Game 1 of the 2023 World Series, an especially lengthy extra inning affair, concluded at 12:07 p.m. on the East Coast.
Tennis governing bodies, however, have decided that 2:00 a.m. local time finishes are completely normal. “It’s one of those things that oddly gets celebrated on social media, like, ‘latest match ever, longest match ever,’” Professional Tennis Player Association executive director Ahmad Nassar said. “But rather than celebrating, we should be mitigating.”
Tennis is different from most other sports in that matches can last either 90 minutes or five hours, but the current scheduling norms nonetheless pose major issues.
Players already dealing with jet lag from international travel can be forced to stay awake until nearly sunrise. Then they must figure out how to rest and recover in time for the next day’s practice or, in some cases, a doubles match. “Technically, I did my practice session today, so I’m good for tomorrow, right?” Sabalenka joked after her match. “Should I just tell my team that? It’s 2 a.m., so you can count it like today.”
Even two days later, though, players could still be feeling the effects. As anyone who’s ever taken a red-eye flight knows, sometimes you can power through the next day but then fatigue hits you like a truck the following day.
In addition to being a challenge for players, the schedule can burden the tournament staff, or fans who must commute home afterward. “It’s not like this is something that fans are clamoring for and commercial partners and broadcasters are clamoring for,” Nassar said. “If you could do it from scratch, it wouldn’t look anything like this.”
So why is it like this? The night sessions in the two big stadiums in Flushing—Ashe and Armstrong—each begin at 7 p.m. and consist of one women’s and one men’s match. A three-set women’s match could last up to three hours and a five-set men’s match could last up to five hours, not including warm-ups and time between the matches.
The dilemma can be exacerbated if the day session, which begins at 11 a.m. in Armstrong and 12 p.m. in Ashe, runs overtime, causing the night session to start late. That’s what happened on both courts on Friday. After the 80 minutes it took to clear fans from Ashe, clean it and usher the new fans in, the Djokovic-Popyrin showdown didn’t get going until nearly 8:30 p.m.
Coming up with a fix, however, is tricky. “Could we start the evening session earlier, instead of seven, start it at six? We decided that’s not really a possibility because it’s hard for New Yorkers to get here even by seven,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said at a 2023 press conference. “We talked about one match at night. We really felt that that was not fair to our fans.”
Even Nassar doesn’t have a concrete solution. “I understand, [scheduling] is a pain in the butt,” Nassar said. “You’ve got singles and doubles, and it piles up, especially if there’s rain early in the tournament.”
“With that new policy, I think that’s the best way to address it,” Coco Gauff said. “I mean, we won’t know until we test a lot of things, but I think this is a good start.”
One piece of low-hanging fruit is to make sure the night sessions always start at 7 p.m., even if that means adjusting the day session to prevent a back-up. Perhaps the Arthur Ashe day session could begin at 11:00 a.m., or Louis Armstrong could host only two day matches instead of three.
Potentially, the time between sessions could be reduced. “I was really surprised, like one hour and 20 minutes to change the stadium?” Sabalenka said.
More radical possibilities include a curfew after which matches are suspended and finished the following day, as is the policy at Wimbledon, or men playing best-of-three-set matches in earlier rounds.
Not all players have a problem with the status quo, though. “I played one late match here three years ago, and that was pretty epic,” Frances Tiafoe said. “I mean, it’s New York. I don’t think the fans mind too much.”
