US Open's Late-Night Matches Challenge Fairness

New York sells itself as the city that never sleeps. This year’s US Open has taken that literally.

Matches have been starting when most of Manhattan is thinking about bed and finishing when the first subway cars fill with commuters. It has produced drama, noise and some unforgettable scenes under the lights. It has also produced a problem the sport can no longer shrug off as part of the tournament’s charm.

When men’s semi-finalists Ben Shelton and Alexander Zverev are heading to bed at roughly the same time Wall Street is waking up, the question is no longer about spectacle. It is about fairness.

Zverev’s night shift vs Khachanov’s routine

No one still in the draw has lived the late-night grind quite like top seed Zverev. Three of his five matches over the past fortnight have finished after 1am. His body clock is so scrambled that he offered a stark comparison.

"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."

On Friday, when he walks out to face Karen Khachanov in the semi-finals, it will be the first time he has played in daylight at this year’s US Open. Scheduled not before 15:00 local time, it represents a rare taste of normality.

Khachanov’s path could hardly be more different. Unseeded, unfancied by many, but on a much more humane timetable. He has not been on court beyond midnight. His quarter-final against Alexander Blockx wrapped up shortly before 19:00 local time on Wednesday, giving him a clear evening, a regular night’s sleep and a standard build-up.

One contender arrives with a body clock turned inside out. The other walks in from something resembling a normal working week.

Shelton and Tiafoe, on different clocks

The imbalance is just as stark on the other side of the men’s draw.

American eighth seed Shelton did not finish his quarter-final win over Carlos Alcaraz until 3:34am on Wednesday, the latest finish in US Open history. He left Arthur Ashe Stadium to the sound of cleaning machines rather than crowd noise.

His semi-final opponent, 11th seed Frances Tiafoe, closed out his own five-set epic against fellow American Alex Michelsen at about 19:00 on Tuesday. He had his evening. He had his recovery window. He had a full night’s sleep.

Shelton, who returns for Friday’s night session against Tiafoe at 19:00 local time, has had two days off court and sounded relaxed about his ability to rebound, insisting he would pull up “all right”.

Those who work in the margins of elite performance are less sanguine.

"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 consequences before. He stood next to Murray at the 2023 Australian Open when the Briton finished at 4am after an exhausting win over Thanasi Kokkinakis, then scraped together only three hours’ sleep before returning to Melbourne Park around 11am.

The pattern is familiar. Zverev did not get to bed until after 5am following each of his opening three victories at Flushing Meadows. On his supposed night off, he stayed up to watch Shelton’s win over Alcaraz, extending the strain on a system already stretched.

For Shelton, Little sketches out the checklist now in motion.

"He'll have to be napping to catch up some sleep," he 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: patchwork recovery, not ideal preparation for a Grand Slam semi-final.

Lessons ignored from Melbourne

Tennis has been here before. Murray described his 4am finish in Melbourne as a "farce". Few in the sport disagreed.

Tournament organisers responded. The Australian Open cut the number of day-session matches on the main courts from three to two, a simple move designed to stop the night schedule from backing up into the small hours.

At tour level, the ATP and WTA went further. Early in 2024, they introduced rules preventing matches on their circuits — the three-set events that dominate the calendar — from starting after 23:00. It was a clear acknowledgement that there is a line that should not be crossed.

But those protections stop at the doors of the Grand Slams. The majors, with their five-set men’s matches and their own powerful commercial engines, are not bound by those rules.

Flushing Meadows has made its own piece of history this fortnight. Last week, Venus Williams and Sofia Kenin began their first-round match at 12:13am, the latest start time in US Open history. It was one of three matches that finished after 2am in the first seven nights, with three more ending after 1am.

Shelton’s epic against Alcaraz then pushed the limit again, setting a new mark for the latest finish the tournament has ever seen.

For Martina Navratilova, 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and long-time observer of the sport’s rhythms, the trend is unsustainable.

"Something has got to give," she said. "This is not OK and it is not normal."

The New York myth collides with modern sport

There is a romantic view of all this. For some, these marathons in the early hours are the beating heart of the US Open. They see the packed stands under the lights, the music between games, the roars echoing around Arthur Ashe Stadium at 2am, and call it a perfect reflection of the city that never sleeps.

There is truth in that. Night sessions in New York have always carried a different kind of electricity. They have produced iconic moments and turned the tournament into a global television event.

But the volume of early-morning finishes this year has tested the limit of that romance. Tuesday’s schedule, which finally wrapped up at 3:34am on Wednesday, owed something to unusual circumstances. All three preceding quarter-finals on Ashe — Aryna Sabalenka beating Linda Noskova, Jessica Pegula overcoming Emma Navarro, and Tiafoe’s five-setter wedged between them — went the distance.

The knock-on effect was inevitable. One long match after another, no slack in the schedule, no safety valve. By the time Shelton and Alcaraz walked off, the night had bled into morning.

This is the crux of the debate now facing the sport. How much chaos is acceptable in pursuit of theatre? How far can a tournament lean into its “never sleeps” identity before it starts tilting the playing field?

As Zverev, Shelton, Khachanov and Tiafoe chase a place in the final, they do so on wildly different sleep cycles, with some bodies tricked into thinking it is dawn when the ball is tossed for the first serve.

The lights on Ashe will blaze again on Friday. The crowds will come. The show will go on.

The real question is how long tennis is willing to let the show run into the night before it finally decides that enough is enough.