US Open 2023: Midnight Matches and Sleep Deprivation
New York has always sold itself as the city that never sleeps. This year’s US Open is taking that slogan literally.
Night sessions have bled deep into the small hours, matches starting when most of the city is heading home and finishing when the first commuters are reaching the subway. It has created a tournament that looks spectacular on television, but one that is starting to ask serious questions about fairness.
Zverev’s semi-final run on borrowed sleep
No one left in the men’s draw has ridden the graveyard shift quite like top seed Alexander Zverev. Three of his five matches have finished after 1am. On some nights, he has not seen his bed until almost sunrise.
"I've been to bed as late as 6:45am in the past week so I'm kind of a bit jet-lagged," he admitted. "I feel like I'm playing the Australian Open in New York right now."
That is not hyperbole. It is a schedule that mimics a different time zone altogether.
On Friday, Zverev finally steps into the daylight. His semi-final against Karen Khachanov, slated not before 15:00 local time (20:00 BST), will be his first day match of this US Open. For once, he will not be walking off court to the sound of leaf blowers and delivery trucks.
Across the net, Khachanov arrives with a very different sleep diary. The unseeded Russian has not played beyond midnight in the tournament. His quarter-final against Alexander Blockx wrapped up shortly before 19:00 local time on Wednesday, giving him a full evening and a relatively normal turnaround.
Same court, same prize. Completely different preparation.
Shelton and Tiafoe on opposite clocks
The other semi-final tells a similar story.
American eighth seed Ben Shelton needed until 3:34am on Wednesday to finish off Carlos Alcaraz in a bruising quarter-final, the latest finish in US Open history. By the time the last ball was struck, the atmosphere on Arthur Ashe Stadium had tipped from electric to surreal, a hardcore crowd roaring through the kind of hour usually reserved for cleaning crews.
Shelton now faces 11th seed Frances Tiafoe in Friday’s night session (19:00 local time/00:00 BST, Sat). Tiafoe’s route could hardly have been more different. He closed out his five-set epic against fellow American Alex Michelsen at around 19:00 on Tuesday. He slept at a normal hour. He woke up like a regular athlete, not a shift worker.
That contrast matters.
"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," Matt Little, Andy Murray's long-time former strength and conditioning coach, told 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."
Little has seen the damage up close. Murray’s infamous 4am finish at the 2023 Australian Open left the former world number one with just three hours of sleep before he had to be back at Melbourne Park around 11am. The body does not simply shrug that off.
Zverev, for his part, did not get to bed until after 5am following each of his opening three victories at Flushing Meadows. On his night off, he even stayed up late to watch Shelton’s win over Alcaraz. The tennis is gripping. The schedule is punishing.
Shelton insists he will be "all right" with two days off court before facing Tiafoe. Little expects the 21-year-old to spend that time in damage-limitation mode.
"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: repair what you can, accept what you cannot.
A problem tennis keeps nudging, not fixing
The sport has been here before, and not just in New York.
Murray called his Melbourne marathon a "farce". Few inside the game disagreed. That outcry forced action. The Australian Open trimmed its day sessions on the main courts from three matches to two, a small but significant tweak designed to stop night sessions from starting so late they drift into the next day.
The tours have tried to follow suit. Early in 2024, the ATP and WTA introduced rules preventing tour-level matches, which are best-of-three sets, from starting after 23:00. That at least draws a line in the sand for regular events.
But the Grand Slams sit apart. Their traditions, their television contracts, their sprawling schedules. Those new rules do not apply here.
So New York keeps pushing the limits.
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 contests in the opening seven nights that ended after 2am, with three more finishing beyond 1am. Shelton’s win over Alcaraz then rewrote the record books again 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. They echo the concern of players, coaches, and sports scientists who see the long-term cost of turning elite athletes into nocturnal performers.
The magic and the cost of the midnight roar
There is, of course, another side. Ask some fans, and they will tell you these nights are the essence of the US Open. The late starts, the late finishes, the soundtrack of New York spilling into the stadium. The tournament leans into the chaos, selling itself as a raucous, floodlit celebration of a city that refuses to wind down.
This fortnight, the volume of early-morning finishes at Flushing Meadows has jumped. Tuesday’s play, which finally ended at 3:34am on Wednesday, came from a perfect storm: all three preceding quarter-finals on Arthur Ashe Stadium went the distance. Aryna Sabalenka against Linda Noskova, Jessica Pegula against Emma Navarro, with Tiafoe’s thriller wedged between them. Three matches, three full-length battles, one heavily delayed night session.
The spectacle was undeniable. So was the toll.
As Zverev, Shelton, Khachanov and Tiafoe chase a place in the final, they do so on wildly different sleep cycles, shaped not by their choices but by a schedule built for drama and television.
The US Open loves its midnight magic. The question now is how long the sport is willing to let that magic come at the players’ expense.
