Why the U.S. Open’s nights leave fans in the dark as tennis goes later in the earlier rounds

NEW YORK — The U.S. Open is known for its late finishes, but there’s never been a year quite like this one.

Quarterfinal Tuesday brought another somewhat nightmarish scenario for everyone except the true night owls. Two long matches on Arthur Ashe Stadium in the daytime, both finishing in deciding tiebreaks, pushed the night session start back by 90 minutes.

Then, Jessica Pegula took three sets to beat her compatriot Emma Navarro.

That meant that Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz took the court a little after 11 p.m. ET in the marquee match of the tournament. The biggest American star in men’s tennis met the biggest star in the sport — a matchup wracked with tension that delivered through five sets — on a school night.

This is how it’s been since the start of this U.S. Open, stretching back to the second night of the mixed doubles competition, which took place during Fan Week in the days ahead of the singles draws. Even the climax of that event, designed for brevity, turned into a five-hour marathon that stretched to midnight.

The cavernous confines of Arthur Ashe Stadium, seating capacity nearly 24,000, was perhaps a quarter full, or three-quarters empty, by the time Jakub Menšík and Karolína Muchová took the title.

That night foretold a scenario that has kept repeating itself, which has revealed a clear dysfunction between the tournament’s schedule and the nature of tennis in 2026.

From the very first round of the singles competition, matches lasted far longer than expected. Over and over, starry contests and scintillating play unfolded in front of scant crowds.

On the opening night, Venus Williams, one of the biggest stars the sport has known, did not walk onto the court until 12:13 a.m. Monday morning. That was thanks to 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic’s four-and-a-half-hour, five-set loss to Mariano Navone stretching out into the night sky.

Williams, who received a wild card because of her legendary accomplishments, her longevity and her mass appeal, played in a time slot that meant that most fans on the East Coast, especially in New York, missed her.

Then 24 hours later, Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego played the tennis of his life in pushing the top seed, Alexander Zverev, to the limit in what would have been a rare upset for the No. 1 seed in the first round of a Grand Slam. It ran past 2 a.m. Most fans missed that one, too.

On six of the first seven days, action didn’t finish until past midnight. Five saw play stop gone 1 a.m.; three went past 2 a.m.

A couple of earlier nights followed. And then came Tuesday’s perfect storm.

A late finish on quarterfinal night is a fairly regular occurrence. Players are evenly matched, so matches tend to go longer. What has made the situation increasingly problematic are certain factors that are well beyond the U.S. Tennis Association’s control.

Tennis is getting more physical. Matches last longer. The 30-second serve clock hasn’t necessarily speeded up play. It’s also encouraged some players to use nearly all 25 seconds before each serve to reset their brains and their lungs.

But maybe most visible and most significant this year has been the unmatched depth of both tours, especially with three out of the four Grand Slams missing one of Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner on the men’s side from the start.

The first week of a U.S. Open is supposed to have its fair share of blowouts and fast matches on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the best players play. Those are decreasing in frequency, and the situation has befuddled the USTA.

“If people have things that we can do that would be a good solve for this we want to hear them,” said Eric Butorac, the tournament director.

“I’m all ears and all, all in favor of looking at it.”

Butorac and his team have been through the permutations.

They cut back the day sessions on the two biggest stadiums, Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong, to two matches beginning at 11:30 a.m. instead of three starting at 11 a.m., to avoid delayed starts to the night session.

It takes about an hour to turnover each stadium from day to night. If the scheduled matches go unexpectedly quickly, they can also slot in another at the last minute.

They have considered moving the night session to a 6:30 p.m. start instead of 7 p.m. This year, that would have meant finishes at 1:45 a.m. instead of 2:15 a.m. That’s not so helpful. Plus, New Yorkers tend to work late. There’s traffic to get through and subways and commuter trains to deal with. Starting before 7 p.m. feels out of step with the city.

The tournament is committed to equality in terms of court assignments. The French Open solution, to schedule just one match at night, which is almost always a men’s match, is a non-starter.

The rest of the decisions seem really extreme,” Butorac said. “You talk about scoring changes, serve clocks. We talk about it, but that’s drastic.”

For now, it’s not really on the table. Also, the chief executive of the USTA, Craig Tiley, came from Tennis Australia. Earlier this year, at the end of his final Australian Open, he advocated for women to move from best-of-three to best-of-five in the second week of the tournament.

In one way, the late nights benefit the tournament. They stretch into primetime in the Pacific time zone, which represents about 20 percent of U.S. households.

The United States is a big country. Tennis is a global sport. Asia and Australia love late nights in the U.S. Open. The U.K. and Europe can wake up to a match gripped by tension. It was after 8 a.m. in London and 9 a.m. in Madrid on Wednesday as Alcaraz and Shelton were playing their final games and the deciding 10-point tiebreak.

Players are much less keen on the late nights. Zverev’s bedtime was about 5 a.m. for the first week, which makes it hard to have a proper practice and recovery on an off-day.

“I’ve never played a match that late before,” Venus Williams said in the middle of the night after her first-round loss. “It’s not ideal. I would have preferred something else definitely. I think it wasn’t great for either of us, so I think we both tried our best. I just don’t know any other sport where you have to start that late. I definitely think there’s room for improvement there.”

At 12:55 a.m. Wednesday, Shelton pulled even with Alcaraz at a set apiece after an hour and 52 minutes of play. The bright-lights match of the tournament was heating up.

Thousands of fans headed for the exits, ready to wake up to what they had missed.

And of course, what they had missed was the latest finish in U.S. Open history.