US Open 2023: The Challenge of Late-Night Matches
New York doesn’t sleep. This year’s US Open has decided it won’t either.
Under the lights of Flushing Meadows, matches have bled into the small hours, turning Arthur Ashe Stadium into a kind of tennis nightclub where the last forehand lands as dawn creeps over Manhattan. It’s dramatic. It’s chaotic. And for some players, it’s starting to feel deeply unfair.
Zverev’s semi-final run on a broken body clock
No one left in the men’s draw has lived the late-night life quite like Alexander Zverev.
The top seed has seen three of his five matches finish after 1am. His sleep pattern looks less like that of an elite athlete and more like a jet-lagged tourist.
"I've been to bed as late as 6:45am in the past week so I'm kind of a bit jet-lagged," he said. "I feel like I'm playing the Australian Open in New York right now."
That line isn’t just a throwaway joke. It captures the surreal reality for a player trying to reach a Grand Slam final while his body clock insists it’s breakfast time.
Friday’s semi-final against Karen Khachanov will finally drag Zverev into daylight. Scheduled not before 15:00 local time (20:00 BST), it will be his first day match of this US Open. A novelty, in the second week of a major.
Khachanov’s route could hardly have been more different. The unseeded Russian has not played beyond midnight once. His quarter-final against Alexander Blockx wrapped up shortly before 19:00 local time on Wednesday. Dinner, recovery, sleep. A normal rhythm, in a tournament that has largely abandoned the idea.
The contrast is stark. One semi-finalist living on borrowed hours; the other preparing like it’s any regular week on tour.
Shelton and Tiafoe: same court, different clocks
On the other side of the draw, the story is just as extreme.
Ben Shelton’s quarter-final win over Carlos Alcaraz did not end until 3:34am on Wednesday, the latest finish in US Open history. The young American walked off Ashe as the night workers headed home and the first commuters started thinking about alarm clocks.
Shelton now faces Frances Tiafoe in Friday’s night session (19:00 local time/00:00 BST, Saturday). Tiafoe’s build-up could hardly be more conventional by comparison.
The 11th seed finished his five-set epic against fellow American Alex Michelsen at around 19:00 on Tuesday. A brutal match, yes, but one that allowed him a full evening to refuel, decompress and sleep.
That difference matters. A lot.
"The advantage of the opponent who has played earlier in the day will be big - they've had that full evening's rest and a good night's sleep," said Matt Little, Andy Murray's long-time former strength and conditioning coach, speaking to BBC Sport.
"We can all relate to it - if you have one really bad night's sleep, you have the knock-on effect of that for the coming days."
Shelton insisted he would pull up "all right" after two days off court. The science, and the schedule, will test that optimism.
"He'll have to be napping to catch up some sleep," Little said. "On the nutritional side, he'll be making sure he gets as many carbs and as much protein as he can in for that next match, and trying to get back to a bit of a routine.
"It's about making sure you can optimise the hydration and get as much sleep as possible without completely going into a full slumber."
In other words: patch the damage, don’t deepen it.
Lessons from Melbourne’s 4am ‘farce’
Tennis has been here before.
Andy Murray’s infamous 4am finish at the 2023 Australian Open – a comeback win over Thanasi Kokkinakis – became a flashpoint. The former world number one managed only about three hours’ sleep before returning to Melbourne Park around 11am.
Murray called the whole thing a "farce". Few argued.
The backlash forced change. The Australian Open cut the number of day-session matches on the main courts from three to two, trimming the risk of the night session being pushed deep into the night.
The tours followed. Early in 2024, the ATP and WTA introduced rules preventing regular tour matches – best of three sets, not five – from starting after 23:00. A clear line in the sand.
But that line stops at the Grand Slam gates. The new rules do not apply to the majors.
So New York has carried on, leaning into its nocturnal identity.
Last week, Venus Williams and Sofia Kenin began their first-round match at 12:13am, the latest start in US Open history. It was one of three matches that finished after 2am in the first seven nights. Three others ended after 1am. Then Shelton and Alcaraz pushed the envelope even further with that 3:34am finish.
"Something has got to give," said 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Martina Navratilova. "This is not OK and it is not normal."
Her words cut through the noise. This is not just about inconvenience. It’s about player welfare, competitive balance, and the image of the sport.
The magic and the cost of New York’s night shift
There is another side to this, and it is loud.
Some argue these late-night epics are the beating heart of the US Open. The soundtrack of New York: music pumping, fans on their feet, a kind of organised chaos under the Ashe roof.
For many, those early-morning marathons define Flushing Meadows. They are the stories people tell years later: the match that finished when the sun came up, the champion who survived on fumes and adrenaline.
The volume of such matches has risen this fortnight. Yet Tuesday’s schedule – and the 3:34am finish that followed on Wednesday – came from a perfect storm.
All three preceding quarter-finals on Arthur Ashe Stadium went the distance. Aryna Sabalenka beat Linda Noskova in three sets. Jessica Pegula outlasted Emma Navarro in another three-set battle. Tiafoe’s five-set win over Michelsen sat between them. By the time Shelton and Alcaraz walked on, the night was already running away.
The US Open has always sold itself as the wild major, the one that reflects its host city’s refusal to slow down. But as Zverev heads to bed at dawn and Shelton rebuilds his sleep from scattered naps, the question grows louder.
At what point does the spectacle stop justifying the strain?
