US Open chief Craig Tiley has told Sky Sports Tennis he plans on keeping two matches during the day and two at night at Flushing Meadows in 2027.
Tiley, who took the helm as new CEO of USTA earlier this year after leading Tennis Australia since 2013, says he has no plans for any changes to the schedule.
It comes after Ben Shelton’s five-set thriller against Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals ended at 3:33am local time on Wednesday, leaving few people awake to see the near five-hour marathon reach its finale on one of the sport’s biggest stages.
Players have long loved the electricity of playing night matches under the lights in the nation’s biggest city.
But the tournament had already set a record with three post-2am finishes over the first six days, as well as having two other matches go past 1am.
The issue has gained added resonance amid a broader push by top players for increased prize money and reforms on welfare and working conditions, with late finishes emerging as a flashpoint in the debate over life on the tour.
Like the US Open, the Australian Open has faced criticism for notoriously late finishes but the other two Grand Slams have imposed checks, with Wimbledon halting play under an 11pm local curfew and the French Open limiting night sessions to one match.
Yet a solution such as starting evening sessions earlier than 7pm is complicated by the argument that tennis-mad New Yorkers need time to get to Flushing Meadows after work and organisers having to manage day-and night-session crowds.
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‘That’s what our fans are telling us’
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Tiley said: “I hear from a lot of people that it finishes too late and then I say, okay, and your suggestion is? I don’t get anything.
“You can’t control the length of the match. What’s really interesting is in the last 10 years the amount of tennis from when you hit a point to when a point stops has been about the same.
“But the length of the matches on the men’s side has increased by an average of about 25 minutes. That’s because we now have the shot clock so everyone is taking their time, and we have the towels here which takes a bit more time and so the whole length of it is a bit longer. Not that much longer, but in fact the average time of the men’s matches today is still not in the top four average times in the last 10 years.
“While it feels really late, the reality is you’ve got to go and look at the data, But that being said, no one wants to finish at 3.30am in the morning, although the rest of the world in the daytime saw a pretty amazing match.”
“We really like the two days and two nights. Two full sessions and you get a women’s match and a great men’s match, and that’s what our fans are telling us. They can come out and see three, four, five hours of entertainment and if it goes really long like the other night, that’s a great sporting ticket so I will keep it,” Tiley added.
Just hours after the Shelton-Alcaraz match concluded, the US Open took to social media with a light-hearted nod to the late night, offering a fill-in-the-blank letter for fans to ask their bosses to be excused from work on Wednesday.
“We understand how important showing up is, but sometimes you have to make time for things you’re passionate about,” the post on X stated. “Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton put on an absolute stellar performance during their US Open quarterfinal, and ______ was a fully committed fan who was completely locked in from start to finish.”
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Could best-of-three sets be a solution?
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Another suggestion that surfaces whenever late finishes dominate the conversation is reducing men’s matches to best-of-three sets in the earlier rounds, though the idea is contentious among those who view five-set matches as central to Grand Slams.
“I think for the men’s we should stick with three out of five,” Frances Tiafoe said.
“I don’t know where the conversation is going, what people are leaning to. Everyone is going to have an opinion, everyone is different.
“We’ve seen so many epics in five-setters. Do I love five-setters? Absolutely not. There’s a lot of times where I’m up two sets to love and I’d love to shake hands and go home. But it’s tennis, man.”
The US Open is live on Sky Sports from August 30. Stream tennis with no contract on NOW and the Sky Sports App. You can also watch the Laver Cup at The O2 in London from 25-27 September live on Sky Sports.