(Reuters) – The issue of matches finishing late at night has been discussed at the U.S. Open but tournament director Stacey Allaster said the year’s final Grand Slam has no plans to change its schedule.
The night session at Flushing Meadows begins at 7 p.m., meaning matches can stretch into the early hours of the following morning.
Last year’s champion Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner in a five-set quarter-final that lasted more than five hours and concluded at 2:50 a.m, the latest finish in U.S. Open history.
Late finishing matches are also common at the Australian Open, with Andy Murray describing his 4:05 a.m. finish in a contest against Thanasi Kokkinakis this year as a “farce”.
Players have faced similar issues at tour events, with Elena Rybakina saying she felt “destroyed” by the Montreal schedule after her quarter-final ended at 3 a.m. last week.
“Without question late-night matches were heavily discussed and reviewed after the 2022 U.S. Open,” Allaster told reporters.
“We looked at starting the evening session earlier, instead of 7 p.m. start at 6 p.m., but it’s not really a possibility because it’s hard for New Yorkers to get here even at 7 p.m.
“We talked about one match at night, but we felt that’s not fair to our fans.”
Women’s world number one Iga Swiatek last week called for better scheduling at events for the sake of player health.
“One of the realities we have in tennis is that we’re not defined by a start and an end time. We can have a short match or we can have a five-hour match,” Allaster said.
“At the moment, we’re staying the course with two night matches. We’ll continue to evaluate it.”
The U.S. Open takes place from Aug. 28-Sept. 10.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
