{"id":67245,"date":"2026-09-06T19:41:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/67245\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T19:41:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:41:42","slug":"empty-seats-tired-stars-the-us-opens-post-2-a-m-finishes-spark-a-pushback-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/67245\/","title":{"rendered":"Empty seats, tired stars: The US Open’s post-2 a.m. finishes spark a pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Alexander Zverev<\/a> wasn\u2019t in the mood for much conversation.<\/p>\n

With empty seats everywhere after he finished his U.S. Open<\/a> first-round match in the early morning hours, he took two questions from reporters on the court and quickly wrapped it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody\u2019s tired,” he said. \u201cEverybody wants to go to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city that never sleeps is going a little overboard this year.<\/p>\n

Players have long loved the electricity of night matches at the U.S. Open<\/a>, where tennis under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium is a hallmark of the American Grand Slam tournament, with fans staying late and bringing plenty of energy. But with the tournament this year already setting a record with three post-2 a.m. finishes over the first six days, plus two more going past 1 a.m., concerns are bubbling up about how much after midnight is too much on such a big stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they\u2019re dealing with a lot of different aspects as far as broadcast and TV and making sure certain matches get done and are starting at a certain time for those reasons,\u201d third-ranked women’s player Jessica Pegula<\/a> said. \u201dBut you have to wonder if it\u2019s really the right thing for players to be finishing at 2 a.m., especially when it\u2019s not \u2014 like, I\u2019m not watching on TV. I\u2019m sleeping. Some people stay, but there is a lot of people that need to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wimbledon instituted an 11 p.m. curfew. The French Open schedules just one match a night. The U.S. Open is famous for going late, though this time maybe to an extreme.<\/p>\n

On opening night, Venus Williams<\/a> was subjected to the latest start in U.S. Open history at 12:13 a.m., after it took 4 hours, 36 minutes for Novak Djokovic<\/a> to get knocked out in the first round.<\/p>\n

Much of the crowd stuck around to see what could wind up being the 46-year-old’s final Grand Slam singles match, a loss to Sofia Kenin<\/a>, but the timing itself was a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not ideal,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI would have preferred something else, definitely. It wasn\u2019t great for either of us, so I think we both tried our best. I just don\u2019t know any other sport where you have to start that late. I definitely think there\u2019s room for improvement there.”<\/p>\n

Zverev’s first two matches ended at 1:55 and 2:15 a.m., making him the first top-seeded man to play back-to-back five-set matches to start a major in the Open era, which dates to 1968. Ben Shelton’s<\/a> second-rounder that started Friday night went until 2:07 a.m. Saturday thanks to the Williams sisters’ doubles match lasting more than three hours.<\/p>\n

Four of the latest 17 finishes in tournament history have occurred this year. The record is still 2:50 a.m. from when Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> beat Jannik Sinner<\/a> in the quarterfinals in 2022 on the way to his first U.S. Open title.<\/p>\n

“Not easy,” Shelton said after defeating Denis Shapovalov<\/a> in 3 hours, 22 minutes. \u201cMy first time experiencing playing this late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelton figured the earliest he’d get to sleep was 5 a.m.<\/p>\n

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka<\/a>, who two years ago played what is now the fourth-latest women’s match, is not a fan of playing after midnight and the potentially lingering effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you finish late, the next day shifts a lot,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cLike, you still need to get your hours of sleep, so you start later. You just can really mess up your schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Alexander Zverev wasn\u2019t in the mood for much conversation. With empty seats everywhere after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[243,217,283,419,271,7621,219,183,139,1915,747],"class_list":["post-67245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novak-djokovic","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-atp","tag-ben-shelton","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-denis-shapovalov","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sofia-kenin","tag-venus-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}