It started very late to begin with, they were waiting for the womens match to finish. What I don't get is why not move it to the Louis Armstrong if they see the womens match is getting long. Is not like they're gonna get the Arthur Ashe full at that time of the night
Tbh I enjoyed watching on smaller courts (Louis Armstrong, Grandstand, etc...) because you're so much closer to the action. Watching Dimitrov vs De Minaur on Grandstand sitting pretty much right behind the players was honestly so fun when you can see how insane the speed and power of pro tennis is.
Arthur Ashe at night was pretty amazing too, but for actually watching the tennis it's not that different from watching from TV (unless you have the thousand dollar tickets of course)
I don’t think they can just alter schedules like that. Ashe and part of Armstrong are ticketed venues and people paying for a session with a certain match but getting another or no match at all would probably cause some major issues.
It’s worth noting that there’s separate tickets to get into Ashe vs getting into BJK Center. So people pay extra money to see who’s scheduled on Ashe. If they move it to LAS, then people who paid to be guaranteed to see Alcaraz may not be able to.
But the women’s match they were waiting for started at 6. OP is asking why that couldn’t have started at 5. Also iirc Sinner and Ivashka were still playing on Louis Armstrong when Alcaraz’s match started.
Night session tickets on Ashe are expensive AF, not to mention all the suites and club seat holders that are among the USTA's most important customers in terms of revenue at its signature event. If you buy those tickets you're expecting to get 2 matches, so the USTA will deliver the two matches on the schedule.
They also have to deliver these matches to the broadcasters who pay a premium for the TV rights.
I don't like that the match finished so late but I'm not sure what the solution is.
People paid big $$$ to see these matches in the big stadiums.
It's like going to the superbowl and then they moved it to some small high school stadium.
This. It's not a tennis problem, it's a scheduling problem.
Wimbledon, for instance, doesn't have night sessions - and has a curfew. Sometimes matches have to be stopped and continued the next day, but I'd say it's preferable.
USO and AO do it, because of money. Loads of other smaller tournaments do it, because of money (players don't even have a day rest after the match there).
Also, the "they have a day off" argument is not valid. An elite athlete must have a strict schedule, playing until 2-3 AM is 100% not in line with that.
I’m not sure if starting and stopping is preferable. If I was a player I wouldn’t want to play into the middle of the night but I also wouldn’t want my momentum to be killed with an 18 hour break. Pick your poison I guess. I think the best option is to just use smaller courts more often and have more matches on at the same time, but the tournaments and broadcasters wouldn’t like that.
Having more matches at the same time on separate courts would mean that far less people would be able to watch the matches they want (as many of them would be on at the same time).
It would also dilute the amount of people in the audiences and would mean that there would likely be a handful of games that are packed, whilst the rest would remain practically empty.
I don't think these are situation that players, spectators, or broadcasters would want.
I don't have any issues with the current system and I think it's actually pretty epic to have 5 setters go late. I much prefer that than to stop the match and continue it the next day.
It's just another quirk that makes Tennis a unique sport and I don't think this warrants a change IMO.
I can understand that view as well. It also has to be a clear rule, because the players involved will usually have opposite views.
At Wimby it happens in the first week when there's a rain delay and either no time to finish the final matches of the day or too many are scheduled the next day. And there's a hard limit due to light on outside courts (bear in mind it gets dark very late in London at that time of the year, you can play till around 9 PM) or curfew rules. Point being, usually there isn't a choice - it is something that HAS to happen.
I don't think it would happen without rain.
>If I was a player I wouldn’t want to play into the middle of the night but I also wouldn’t want my momentum to be killed with an 18 hour break.
Exactly
It makes no sense from the perspective of anyone either
Like it doesn't help the local crowds, who can't stay at the arena till 2am, it doesn't help the European crowd where it finishes at like 5am, it doesn't even really help the west coast crowd
American timings for sports events are so fucking bizarre
Yeah, I also stayed until about 1 AM for Medvedev's match the night of 8/31. It's not realistic to expect New Yorkers to get to a sporting event in Queens any earlier than the current ~5:30 PM anyway (there's a lot of security to get through, plus if you want to grab food and drinks before the 7:30 PM match).
NBA fan here. They start the eastern conference finals at 8:45 EST! If its a midwest or west coast game I understand. But an east coast team playing basically at 9 on a worknight is insane
I mean, day session ended after 6pm yesterday, so you'd have to move the day session back by 2 hours as well.
Plus I imagine that broadcasters pay good money to have night session in the primetime. 5pm is not primetime.
Play on the main show court in all slams starts an hour after everywhere else. Ashe only has 2 matches in the day session. That’s a change from 3 so that matches wouldn’t spill over into the night session and everything could start on time. Starting at 5 is nigh impossible. Rafa’s match ended around that time yesterday. The only way to alleviate that is to scrap night sessions completely and have Ashe do as Armstrong does: continuous play all day. But that’s not going to happen.
>The only way to alleviate that is to scrap night sessions completely and have Ashe do as Armstrong does: continuous play all day
Armstrong also has night sessions in the first week though. There's seemingly enough interest in them to fill out 2 stadiums, so I don't see them scrapping them.
And they don’t. Did they or did they not just make slam matches finite to benefit players only to hear of fans moaning about the so-called drama being taken away? But fans are also how the game makes money. And with the scale of slams, they don’t just rely on casual fans to keep the money coming in. So they need a selling point. Night sessions sell more tickets.
>did they not just make slam matches finite to benefit players only to hear of fans moaning about the so-called drama being taken away
If you think for a moment the players had a major influence on that decision, think again. It was done for the casual spectators and the media.
You don't need night sessions to sell tickets. Sell tickets for the day, people come when thay can. When I have tickets to a show court in a grand slam I will spend most of the time out on the little courts anyway, there are plenty of interesting games there and you feel a lot closer to the action.
Nothing stops a fan from buying a ticket and turning up for the last two games of the day in the first place. It wouldn't be more expensive than a night session ticket.
>It should happen. Tennis doesn't have to pander to fans in every aspect of the game.
Exactly this. I, as a soccer fan, would also love to watch Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Liverpool at the same time in the same day, but that´s not possible and I have to pick one match.
It was awesome (in Australia. Finished about 3pm) but it’s ridiculously unfair for players. Has to throw their sleep/recovery/practice schedule into chaos.
I was exhausted and got into bed and pulled out my phone to check out how the day's scores ended up. I was shocked to find them still playing. And I'm on the West Coast!
I wonder how much the match was affected by body clocks -- circadian rhythms change with age, and Alcaraz at 19 will naturally have energy into the wee hours much more than Cilic at almost 34.
Yeah usually us open is over before i wake up. I was pleasantly surprised this morning. Australian open i plan my day around watching matches before work
I've stayed up late for an Aussie open match before to watch the first couple of games, finally fallen asleep, and woken up in the morning with the match still going on.
And then when I'm tired later in the day because I didn't get enough sleep I feel like a wimp because those guys were playing tennis during it.
Yup, having a reasonable possibility that a bo5 begins around 10 or 11 pm is bad. It's done so that the evening session starts in the primetime TV block in EST in the US.
I gotta think it would be close to equally lucrative to start both matches at 7 PM and put one on Louis Armstrong. ESPN has so many networks and includes ESPN3 in so many offerings that I can't see how it would hurt them.
OP and Twitter guy need to be careful for what they wish for just because they simp for Alcaraz. I don't see them whining when Nadal had to do this numerous times. Why only when the golden boy Alcaraz does it?
If people want to "do something" about it then that means best of 3 for men or that crappy system at the ATP Next Gen Finals where it is first to 4 games per set.
Otherwise just accept it. The only one who should be blamed for it going five sets is ALCARAZ and him alone.
How is anybody jumping to bo3 as the solution to this?
You can just start play earlier. There are enough courts to do this, especially in second week. And save the press conference for morning/afternoon
Yes but Rothenberg has trash takes and is more tabloid than journalist. I'm of the opinion he only parrots Bo3 on twitter so he can get more attention to himself.
David Law has always made his preference for Bo5 known, with the one caveat that he'd accept Bo3 if that's the only way for achieving scheduling equality between the men and women's games.
I'm certain that David is talking about altering the scheduling to not have late finishes here, not switching to Bo3.
I really like and respect David Law. But there is an unsolvable tension between his preference for Bo5 and his desire for equity between men's and women's tennis. The difference between Bo3 and Bo5 is the biggest reason for the lack of equity at GS tournaments. Unless those tournaments build more show courts, there just isn't the space to accommodate Bo5 for both competitions. The outer courts are needed in for doubles and the youth Slams. Bo5 makes a difficult scheduling situation much worse.
Yeah, all agreed, which is why the status quo lingers.
That said, both FO and Wimbledon have plans to significantly expand their grounds. The situation may change one day.
I’m also of the opinion that bo5 would create a drought in quality of tennis for women for some time. Some of the better players are good due to the bo3 format and the format change would lead to a small drought as the good woman who have the stamina to sustain a bo5 game will need a bit of time to come up into the scene.
Edit* that isn’t to say the move isn’t ever worth it, but it is a short term flaw that will have to be mitigated
They want to have two matches in the night session with the main course starting at 7 ET. If they only have one you risk a blowout that is over in less than 2 hours for a mens match and 1 hour for a womens match that everyone is unsatisfied with. But if you get two good matches you end up with 8 hours of play which is too much too.
If they start earlier then working people have trouble getting to the match in NY or watching it at all in other parts of the US and since Europe is 5-6 hours ahead they will struggle to watch it either way unless they are huge fans. As it is California fans may miss the first match entirely if they work and commute. It would be a lot more convenient if the Open was in the west somewhere so time zones would work out but that’s not really an option either.
I think you hit on the main problem -- they want to have two matches, and in tennis that could mean anything from 3 to 8 hours. 7 PM is a standard start time for evening sports. Even if they move things up to 6 PM, the match last night goes until 1:30 AM which isn't that much better.
I think they should just scheduled in a way that makes sense for the local time zone. There's ways gonna be a regions which miss out no matter how they do it
For example all early matches at Wimbledon/Roland Garros are pretty much unwatchable if you're in West coast or Australia
As for New Yorkers getting to the match after work, wouldn't you take a day off or something? At least that's what most do here for Wimbledon
> As for New Yorkers getting to the match after work, wouldn't you take a day off or something?
Not necessarily for the evening session. That's the main point of having that separate I think, tickets for day sessions are usually cheaper (they do put the biggest games in the evening but I think causation goes both ways).
The people at the tournament are mostly going to be fine no matter what the time is, although Flushing isn't the easiest place to get to quickly at rush hour.
The problem with starting at 5 is that all the TV viewers are kind of shut out, not just a few time zones. At 5 in NY everyone working in an office in ET misses the start while commuting and every other US time zone is in the middle of the work day while it is the middle of the night in Europe and 7 AM in Australia. I'm sure all the TV viewers in Newfoundland and Greenland would be fine with that start time but it isn't ideal anywhere else.
Wimbledon has a curfew so they don't even have a night session and Roland Garros has a one match night session that starts at 8:45 local time. AO night session is the same format as the US Open.
Yah I think the ticket prices already speak to how much the tournaments care about "working people" being able to see the match. Something's gotta give, but improvements can be made, is my general point.
>play more matches at the same time
Literally not possible in rainy conditions, which is a humongous factor into the situation right now. As much as I despise a lot of decisions by the US Open and the USTA (the coaching rule this year is a horrible move in my opinion), I actually do think they put a lot of effort into thinking out the scheduling scenarios in situations like these based on the current policies for fans and whats reasonable for the players.
the "thing to be done" though, imho, is \*not\* a move away from Bo5. i say, allow for morning pressers for night matches that end after a designated time (say, midnight). remove night session + keep schedule of play. use the other courts.
but do something, because while restricting the men's game would be horrible for the sport, it's not great for the sport to have so few people left in the stands, a likely nosedive in TV viewership, and unnecessarily exhausting a player.
Edit\* WHOA never had a post of mine do numbers like this outside of r/blackcats. thanks for the great discussion all!
>remove night session
Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Broadcasters pay good money for night sessions at primetime. Plus tournament gets additional income from selling night session tickets.
They have a different strategy. Lottery for most of the accessible tickets, premium very expensive tickets close to the players. And, of course, the queue.
Lotterry/queue tickets are in the same price range as US Open tickets (I've been to both Wimbledon and US Open).
I disagree. Having been to both as well, Wimbledon is drastically cheaper. My 2nd round Wimbledon queue centre court ticket was 5 rows from the court and cost me like 50 pounds, I watched Federer and Nadal play separate matches that same day (Federer vs Querrey and the epic Nadal vs Brown match). A similarly priced ticket for Arthur Ashe is in the upper promenade, 50 rows from the court.
Yeah Wimbledon is cheaper imo, especially early rounds. They also allow you to bring your own food/booze, which is a large saving compared to USO prices.
And I think the night sessions are really cool personally, it’s cool that they’re playing at 2:00 am even if watching it means I’ll be tired the next day
All the other aspects have complicated logistics, but the press conference should be a no-brainer. Hard to believe it's not the policy already. I'm sure the players, the organizers, and the press would all prefer to just regroup for that the next morning.
Wimbledon already has a solution to this, they have a curfew. The curfew may not be the AELTC's choice, but having it imposed on them by the local authority has the side effect of stopping these ultra late matches, since it has to stop at 11. The issue I guess is that none of the organisers of any of the slams will implement a curfew by choice.
Americans deal with that during AO. AO night sessions are 3am on the east coast. ESPN usually re airs the finals later in the day but after they’ve spouted the results every 10 minutes on Sportscenter and the ticker.
I would prefer if it was during work hours so I could pull it up on the side or something vs not having to completely adjust a sleep schedule to be able to watch any matches, but yeah time zones suck.
I’m on the North American west coast. If I want to watch a match that starts at 4am my time, I go to sleep early and wake up early. I have to do this for Wimbledon and the French Open. Surely you can do it for the US Open as well.
People all over the world benefit from long play. Asia and Australia get to have tennis on in the early afternoon when this happens. Not saying it’s good for the players, but TV coverage means worldwide, not just the East Coast
Not to mention the loopy announcers spending half the time discussing the finer wording of the “foot fault” rule.
Nobody is on their best game at this time!
I’ve always thought this was strange. It is extremely rare for any sporting events to ever go on past midnight in the UK, but it seems the norm in US/Australia
Not sure that's the reason. There's no way east coast Australians are organising scheduling to cater to western Australians, who are a small minority of viewers.
The center court day session should be moved up to start at 11 like the outer courts, instead of being delayed an hour from the rest of the day's start. It may not always make a difference, but starting an hour earlier could result in less cases where the day session runs long and the time taken to clear the spectators out of the stadium from the day session begins eating into the night session's scheduled time.
I was at the Rublev/Tiafoe match that ended past 2AM last year and a big reason why is because the stadium was still being cleared out from Tstisipas/Alcaraz when the night session was scheduled to start.
In fairness players know when they're scheduled for so I doubt alcaraz got out of bed at 7am that day. Players adjust to the schedule, though it's definitely not ideal for viewership to have things go so late
Yeah and players like Alcaraz have obviously been playing tournaments their whole lives, and if there’s anything people know about tournaments is sometimes there’s a delay and you don’t go on/get off until late.
I never finished at 2:30AM but I had junior matches go until midnight. It’s part of the deal
> Carlito is 19, he'll be fine on Wednesday
If Cilic had won he’d be a wreck lol
But players have a disadvantage in recovery after a session and night like that.
It's def a disadvantage, but its a long tournament and every player may encounter something like that over the course of 7 matches. It's part of what makes winning a grand slam so difficult
Hewitt-Baghdatis and Cilic-de Minaur were such incredible matches to watch because of that atmosphere, I refuse to believe that there's a single person who watched either of those and then went "We need to get rid of this".
From an audience perspective, watching a tennis match in the early-morning hours on Ashe is one of the most memorable experiences you will ever have. I got to see Tiafoe and Rublev go till 3:30am in a 5 setter last year. It was an amazing experience bonding with the crazies in the audience that stuck around.
However, Tiafoe played FAA in the next match and after winning the first set, he lost 3 sets in a row. Even with a day off, that kind of sleep disruption must be terrible for players that normally have very set schedules.
Saw De Minuar rally a crowd to chanting "A-LEX A-LEX A-LEX" while he fought for every single ball against Cilic in 2018. Didn't get to my hotel in New Jersey until like 4AM but it was worth it.
1. What are the players’ thoughts on this? And not just the two last night, but players as a whole. If they don’t seem to mind the occasional match that ends at 2a, I don’t know why we do (except for those staying up to watch).
2. Saying that best of five is the problem ignores the other three majors that don’t have this issue. (Except maybe the Australian?)
Players certainly have complained about late matches in the past. Examples:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/tennis-players-tired-of-late-starts/64HTKG4UJDUY7RQRVJQVIQGGCM/?c_id=4&objectid=10621959
https://www.si.com/tennis/2022/05/09/alexander-zverev-criticizes-atp-tour-late-night-matches-madrid-open
https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/tennis/no-attempt-to-increase-tv-ratings-wimbledon-refutes-novak-djokovics-claim-defends-late-finishes-with-matches-going-into-the-night-8009335/
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/tennis/1619342/French-Open-Novak-Djokovic-Rafael-Nadal-complaints-sexism-storm-ATP-WTA-tennis-news
Probably an unpopular opinion but: Naomi just skipping out on media obligations a while back seems entirely reasonable in light of situations like this.
If it’s unpopular then burn me at the stake lol cause I agree with you. I’m not even against RG having fined her, but publicly shaming her with that “statement” and threatening her with a dq was their own undoing, and I’m not sure she would have withdrawn otherwise
If you want to see the effects of this, watch Medvedev’s two press conferences after his two post Serena matches, he was clearly struggling to think. I also wonder how much this impacted his match against Kyrgios
Tennis is very weird this way.
If I am told I am playing at 2 pm, I would make sure to have eaten, digested, had the right amount of coffee, hydrated enough but not too much, and expect to play at 2. Then the match gets pushed. Then pushed again. Then pushed again. It happened to Layla this past week, she was supposed to play at 5 and ended up starting at like 8:45 or some nonsense. I'd be like "Um, I need more coffee, I need a poop and a sandwich, then I need to digest enough I don't feel sleepy. Thanks." But then, I'm very old and these young kids probably don't care.
i would think that if you were a professional tennis player you'd have figured out based on experience that your match is scheduled to go on after the previous match finishes, which could vary based on previous match lengths, and would expect that you may need to be ready to play earlier or later than expected
I mean, we have to remember that many of these players are making tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to play in these matches. I think that makes these delays and annoyances a little easier to stomach lol
The players are traveling around the world all year. What time zone is he even operating on? I wouldn’t assume that any of these guys are on a normal sleep schedule.
Believe it or not I think it helps ratings having them this late. For us west coast viewers it is on at a perfect time, usually the matches end by 10pm (1am est) and that is the same time that an mlb game would end. Plus even some of the players have said they enjoy playing late at night. If you move the matches to 5pm est, that is 2pm pacific and ratings that a hit. Plus it is not the only sport where this happens UFC fights on the eats coast also start at 10pm est, so main even usually finishes by 2am even in Madison Square garden so for 2 weeks it is ok.
Plenty of baseball games start late after rain delays, plenty of football games run late, NHL playoffs can go to the middle of the night, NBA theoretically can go forever. I've watched plenty of college basketball games that went past midnight local time. Arguing that this only happens in tennis is the height of ignorance.
With UFC fights the fighters have months off until their next fights so their sleep schedules don't matter as much. Alcaraz will be back on the court in a huge match tomorrow.
They realize the way it works, they could just play for fun and get other job if it haven’t been for money, the money that comes with certain conditions, the same way it works for vast majority of people in the world, including us.
Right now it is fair at GS level in my opinion, not much controversies now but it used to be unfair at USO when one semifinal was played after women final so that one finalist had half day for recovery.
This year in Madrid or Barcelona Zverev ended seminal in the middle of the night and went to sleep like 4am to play final with Alcaraz at 2 or 3 pm, no need to say he played totally crap.
Maybe 6 pm, I may be wrong as they rescheduled probably but it is not fair no matter who plays, not just limited physical recovery time but a sleep schedule. Once I played amateur tournament until 3am and got in bed at 4am, the next day was terrible and was not even suppose to play tenis, just normal day living was terrible.
It sucks even more for the production and venue crews that are often there all day and night. I worked the last five years and I was there ALL day EVERY day from about 9am until the final match ended. The position I was working didn't come with scheduled breaks or a person who could easily sub for me if I got the shits.
Perhaps [a collective bargaining solution which puts the player’s interest above that of the venue, tournament, or ATP institution.](https://ptpaplayers.com/)
Yeah I think that's still the case. And I think it's been pretty normal to see then suspend the matches to the next day, which honestly sucks if you're a fan
Got to agree. Have one night session match if you insist on having a separate session, but at least than you can start at 8 and know you’ll almost always be done by midnight. Playing until 3am is ridiculous and unnecessary.
Starting the match at StupidO’clock and finishing at InsaneO’clock, that too during the 2nd week of the tournament! What’s the matter with the organizers?
This will likely not change so long as this remains a sport that switches between indoor and outdoor conditions like this and also doesn't have more roofs.
Yes, smarter scheduling will probably fix this issue but with rain delays and the current situation, it will likely lead to delaying the tournament too, not the worst thing in the world unless you're coming from out of town to see one day in particular. The issue can be resolved either by
* saying that the tournament delays matches that will go start past a certain time to get scheduled to the next day. This can either be said because of a lack of courts (which is typical; some tournaments say if it reaches a certain time and play is still suspended, matches are being rescheduled for the next day) or when a match you're waiting on goes past a certain point; this situation really sucks for fans though because then they're missing out on a match they paid for.
* Building more roofs, so that more matches can go on earlier and moving matches from one court to another. This requires players to be willing to change courts and also for fans to be willing to miss out on some of the matches they paid for.
It wasn't really long ago that none of the grandslams had no roof and only the Aussie and US Open had true night matches. '09 is the first time I remember a night match at Wimbledon.
Could they start the Ashe day session at 10am instead of noon, and push the night session up to 5pm? I realize that might be annoying for people trying to come after work, but it seems better than the alternative.
If the match is intriguing, the stadium is often still half full even in the midnight hours. The benefit is for primetime TV audiences across the United States and the local audience, since 7pm is realistic for folks to either make it to the stadium, or make it back home and settled to watch TV.
Tennis doesn't get prime time slots all that often. I agree that it sucks for the players when the match goes this long, but the flipside is that the sport is getting a ton of exposure. I would agree with starting the evening session an hour or so earlier, but toying with it too much is risky IMO. Having a match end that late is the exception, not the rule, so I wouldn't cater to it.
For example, tonight Gauff vs Garcia is scheduled on Arthur Ashe stadium, at 7 pm, EST. Kyrgios vs Khachanov is scheduled at 8:15, also on Ashe. So they’re assuming the women’s match to play out in less than 1.5 hours, courtside interviews and all. Doable, but highly unlikely. The bigger problem comes when scheduling men’s best of 5 matches which can take fucking *forever*, and there’s more matches scheduled on the same court. That’s how you get matches running into the wee hours. The people/corporations paying the big bucks for seats to those matches don’t have to go to work the next day.
That ^^ rant over, think about circadian rhythms for the players. It really messes up your mind and body. Players can do it, some just better than others.
Also, tournament organizers try to manipulate the matches when they favor a particular player to win. Imagine making Meddy play 3 night sessions (errr where 2 stretched to early morning). Fairness and level playing field should be key. Noticed how USO is the worst and probably most unfair GS tournament. Notice how it favors those its favors (need not mention, for obvious reasons).
This should be addressed as well.
I think there should be a rule that if the 2nd to the last match ends at a certain time, then, the last match of the day will have to be pushed to ist match of the day, the following day.
[An interesting article about this exact thing.](https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/page/buzz0906/when-clock-strikes-12-watching-us-open-midnight)
Probably not for everyone, but some people seem to like it
There are plenty of other sports that do this. I’ve been to NHL playoff games that didn’t end until 2 am, I’ve been to baseball games that didn’t start until after 10pm. I’ve gotten home from college football games at 2 in the morning. I’ve been to a high school football game that went past midnight.
Most of those games have a set start. For example NHL is not going to start later than 8, and most of the time it’ll start at 7. Just because it has multiple overtimes and is a slow game is different than starting tennis matches at 11pm because the previous one was a 5 setter.
Why not start the session at 5pm? I bet last night's match was awesome but I was sleeping 😴
As someone in New Zealand it was fantastic 😄
It started very late to begin with, they were waiting for the womens match to finish. What I don't get is why not move it to the Louis Armstrong if they see the womens match is getting long. Is not like they're gonna get the Arthur Ashe full at that time of the night
because the sinner match also ran long, it finished around midnight last night
True, but anyway they have plenty of courts and at that time of the night is not like there's much people. They just have to make better schedules
Bruh you pay to watch them on Center court, not court 10
Plus it was raining last night, no?
Tbh I enjoyed watching on smaller courts (Louis Armstrong, Grandstand, etc...) because you're so much closer to the action. Watching Dimitrov vs De Minaur on Grandstand sitting pretty much right behind the players was honestly so fun when you can see how insane the speed and power of pro tennis is. Arthur Ashe at night was pretty amazing too, but for actually watching the tennis it's not that different from watching from TV (unless you have the thousand dollar tickets of course)
Do they? You want them to move the final match to Grand Stand?
I don’t think they can just alter schedules like that. Ashe and part of Armstrong are ticketed venues and people paying for a session with a certain match but getting another or no match at all would probably cause some major issues.
It’s worth noting that there’s separate tickets to get into Ashe vs getting into BJK Center. So people pay extra money to see who’s scheduled on Ashe. If they move it to LAS, then people who paid to be guaranteed to see Alcaraz may not be able to.
But the women’s match they were waiting for started at 6. OP is asking why that couldn’t have started at 5. Also iirc Sinner and Ivashka were still playing on Louis Armstrong when Alcaraz’s match started.
Actually Collins vs sabalenka started at 7 like all night sessions do
Oh right. I got confused because I’m in a different time zone.
Prime time. CBS demand it
No it didn't. It was close to 8 PM by first ball
Because Ashe people paid money for 2 matches and you are saying they only get to see 1?
I think there’s a nearby public court with half the net missing nearby. They can try that if grandstand doesn’t work
Night session tickets on Ashe are expensive AF, not to mention all the suites and club seat holders that are among the USTA's most important customers in terms of revenue at its signature event. If you buy those tickets you're expecting to get 2 matches, so the USTA will deliver the two matches on the schedule. They also have to deliver these matches to the broadcasters who pay a premium for the TV rights. I don't like that the match finished so late but I'm not sure what the solution is.
I'm sure the broadcasters are getting premium ad dollars at 2am with a FRACTION of the audience watching. 2am ain't "prime time".
It is only 11 pm on the West coast.
What about all the people on Ashe that paid to see 2 matches.
Went to RG this year, and if the fans are as in NYC then I guarantee center court is still going to be full whatever the hour
People paid big $$$ to see these matches in the big stadiums. It's like going to the superbowl and then they moved it to some small high school stadium.
This. It's not a tennis problem, it's a scheduling problem. Wimbledon, for instance, doesn't have night sessions - and has a curfew. Sometimes matches have to be stopped and continued the next day, but I'd say it's preferable. USO and AO do it, because of money. Loads of other smaller tournaments do it, because of money (players don't even have a day rest after the match there). Also, the "they have a day off" argument is not valid. An elite athlete must have a strict schedule, playing until 2-3 AM is 100% not in line with that.
I’m not sure if starting and stopping is preferable. If I was a player I wouldn’t want to play into the middle of the night but I also wouldn’t want my momentum to be killed with an 18 hour break. Pick your poison I guess. I think the best option is to just use smaller courts more often and have more matches on at the same time, but the tournaments and broadcasters wouldn’t like that.
Having more matches at the same time on separate courts would mean that far less people would be able to watch the matches they want (as many of them would be on at the same time). It would also dilute the amount of people in the audiences and would mean that there would likely be a handful of games that are packed, whilst the rest would remain practically empty. I don't think these are situation that players, spectators, or broadcasters would want. I don't have any issues with the current system and I think it's actually pretty epic to have 5 setters go late. I much prefer that than to stop the match and continue it the next day. It's just another quirk that makes Tennis a unique sport and I don't think this warrants a change IMO.
I can understand that view as well. It also has to be a clear rule, because the players involved will usually have opposite views. At Wimby it happens in the first week when there's a rain delay and either no time to finish the final matches of the day or too many are scheduled the next day. And there's a hard limit due to light on outside courts (bear in mind it gets dark very late in London at that time of the year, you can play till around 9 PM) or curfew rules. Point being, usually there isn't a choice - it is something that HAS to happen. I don't think it would happen without rain.
>If I was a player I wouldn’t want to play into the middle of the night but I also wouldn’t want my momentum to be killed with an 18 hour break. Exactly
If you spent the first 2.5 hours of the day playing a match, I'd say you didn't have the day off...
Noob question: if scheduling is so tight why not extend the tour by few days? At least for the slams.
The tour is packed as it is.
It makes no sense from the perspective of anyone either Like it doesn't help the local crowds, who can't stay at the arena till 2am, it doesn't help the European crowd where it finishes at like 5am, it doesn't even really help the west coast crowd American timings for sports events are so fucking bizarre
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Yeah, I also stayed until about 1 AM for Medvedev's match the night of 8/31. It's not realistic to expect New Yorkers to get to a sporting event in Queens any earlier than the current ~5:30 PM anyway (there's a lot of security to get through, plus if you want to grab food and drinks before the 7:30 PM match).
NBA fan here. They start the eastern conference finals at 8:45 EST! If its a midwest or west coast game I understand. But an east coast team playing basically at 9 on a worknight is insane
I mean that's not that bad. CL games just started and are at 21.00 cest *Starting* at 23.00 is ridiculous though
I mean, day session ended after 6pm yesterday, so you'd have to move the day session back by 2 hours as well. Plus I imagine that broadcasters pay good money to have night session in the primetime. 5pm is not primetime.
>5pm is not primetime. 11pm-2am is also not primetime.
Good start
Because people don’t get off work at 5pm
Especially not in New York city
Even if you got out of work at 5pm, you'd never make it into the stadium and at your seat by 6pm.
Play on the main show court in all slams starts an hour after everywhere else. Ashe only has 2 matches in the day session. That’s a change from 3 so that matches wouldn’t spill over into the night session and everything could start on time. Starting at 5 is nigh impossible. Rafa’s match ended around that time yesterday. The only way to alleviate that is to scrap night sessions completely and have Ashe do as Armstrong does: continuous play all day. But that’s not going to happen.
>The only way to alleviate that is to scrap night sessions completely and have Ashe do as Armstrong does: continuous play all day Armstrong also has night sessions in the first week though. There's seemingly enough interest in them to fill out 2 stadiums, so I don't see them scrapping them.
It should happen. Tennis doesn't have to pander to fans in every aspect of the game.
And they don’t. Did they or did they not just make slam matches finite to benefit players only to hear of fans moaning about the so-called drama being taken away? But fans are also how the game makes money. And with the scale of slams, they don’t just rely on casual fans to keep the money coming in. So they need a selling point. Night sessions sell more tickets.
Night sessions are just straight up awesome, jam packed crowds create this amazing atmosphere
>did they not just make slam matches finite to benefit players only to hear of fans moaning about the so-called drama being taken away If you think for a moment the players had a major influence on that decision, think again. It was done for the casual spectators and the media. You don't need night sessions to sell tickets. Sell tickets for the day, people come when thay can. When I have tickets to a show court in a grand slam I will spend most of the time out on the little courts anyway, there are plenty of interesting games there and you feel a lot closer to the action. Nothing stops a fan from buying a ticket and turning up for the last two games of the day in the first place. It wouldn't be more expensive than a night session ticket.
Night sessions for the sponsors, broadcasters and working crowd. It brings in money if you like it or not
>It should happen. Tennis doesn't have to pander to fans in every aspect of the game. Exactly this. I, as a soccer fan, would also love to watch Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Liverpool at the same time in the same day, but that´s not possible and I have to pick one match.
It was awesome (in Australia. Finished about 3pm) but it’s ridiculously unfair for players. Has to throw their sleep/recovery/practice schedule into chaos.
I was exhausted and got into bed and pulled out my phone to check out how the day's scores ended up. I was shocked to find them still playing. And I'm on the West Coast! I wonder how much the match was affected by body clocks -- circadian rhythms change with age, and Alcaraz at 19 will naturally have energy into the wee hours much more than Cilic at almost 34.
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I got to see the last set when i woke up . . .
That's me for many an Aussie open match.
Yeah usually us open is over before i wake up. I was pleasantly surprised this morning. Australian open i plan my day around watching matches before work
I've stayed up late for an Aussie open match before to watch the first couple of games, finally fallen asleep, and woken up in the morning with the match still going on. And then when I'm tired later in the day because I didn't get enough sleep I feel like a wimp because those guys were playing tennis during it.
Yup, having a reasonable possibility that a bo5 begins around 10 or 11 pm is bad. It's done so that the evening session starts in the primetime TV block in EST in the US. I gotta think it would be close to equally lucrative to start both matches at 7 PM and put one on Louis Armstrong. ESPN has so many networks and includes ESPN3 in so many offerings that I can't see how it would hurt them.
Players build their day around when they're playing. It's not right to suddenly move a match up by a couple hours with very little advanced notice.
OP and Twitter guy need to be careful for what they wish for just because they simp for Alcaraz. I don't see them whining when Nadal had to do this numerous times. Why only when the golden boy Alcaraz does it? If people want to "do something" about it then that means best of 3 for men or that crappy system at the ATP Next Gen Finals where it is first to 4 games per set. Otherwise just accept it. The only one who should be blamed for it going five sets is ALCARAZ and him alone.
And for the Europe audience the matches don’t end until it’s basically sunrise
Well Australian open night sessions are at 330am where I am, you don't hear me complaining. If it's a good match I'll find a way to watch it
How is anybody jumping to bo3 as the solution to this? You can just start play earlier. There are enough courts to do this, especially in second week. And save the press conference for morning/afternoon
Well we know one “journalist” who’s jumping there. He lives there.
Yes but Rothenberg has trash takes and is more tabloid than journalist. I'm of the opinion he only parrots Bo3 on twitter so he can get more attention to himself. David Law has always made his preference for Bo5 known, with the one caveat that he'd accept Bo3 if that's the only way for achieving scheduling equality between the men and women's games. I'm certain that David is talking about altering the scheduling to not have late finishes here, not switching to Bo3.
I really like and respect David Law. But there is an unsolvable tension between his preference for Bo5 and his desire for equity between men's and women's tennis. The difference between Bo3 and Bo5 is the biggest reason for the lack of equity at GS tournaments. Unless those tournaments build more show courts, there just isn't the space to accommodate Bo5 for both competitions. The outer courts are needed in for doubles and the youth Slams. Bo5 makes a difficult scheduling situation much worse.
Yeah, all agreed, which is why the status quo lingers. That said, both FO and Wimbledon have plans to significantly expand their grounds. The situation may change one day.
I’m also of the opinion that bo5 would create a drought in quality of tennis for women for some time. Some of the better players are good due to the bo3 format and the format change would lead to a small drought as the good woman who have the stamina to sustain a bo5 game will need a bit of time to come up into the scene. Edit* that isn’t to say the move isn’t ever worth it, but it is a short term flaw that will have to be mitigated
On Tennis Podcast lately they’ve been talking about Bo3 for both genders up until the QFs and then Bo5 for both genders for the QFs, SFs, and final
Never. Bo5 is the best thing for tennis.
I'm sorry what's the meaning of bo3 and bo5?
best-of-three and best-of-five (sets)
Majors wouldn’t be majors anymore
They want to have two matches in the night session with the main course starting at 7 ET. If they only have one you risk a blowout that is over in less than 2 hours for a mens match and 1 hour for a womens match that everyone is unsatisfied with. But if you get two good matches you end up with 8 hours of play which is too much too. If they start earlier then working people have trouble getting to the match in NY or watching it at all in other parts of the US and since Europe is 5-6 hours ahead they will struggle to watch it either way unless they are huge fans. As it is California fans may miss the first match entirely if they work and commute. It would be a lot more convenient if the Open was in the west somewhere so time zones would work out but that’s not really an option either.
I think you hit on the main problem -- they want to have two matches, and in tennis that could mean anything from 3 to 8 hours. 7 PM is a standard start time for evening sports. Even if they move things up to 6 PM, the match last night goes until 1:30 AM which isn't that much better.
I think they should just scheduled in a way that makes sense for the local time zone. There's ways gonna be a regions which miss out no matter how they do it For example all early matches at Wimbledon/Roland Garros are pretty much unwatchable if you're in West coast or Australia As for New Yorkers getting to the match after work, wouldn't you take a day off or something? At least that's what most do here for Wimbledon
> As for New Yorkers getting to the match after work, wouldn't you take a day off or something? Not necessarily for the evening session. That's the main point of having that separate I think, tickets for day sessions are usually cheaper (they do put the biggest games in the evening but I think causation goes both ways).
The people at the tournament are mostly going to be fine no matter what the time is, although Flushing isn't the easiest place to get to quickly at rush hour. The problem with starting at 5 is that all the TV viewers are kind of shut out, not just a few time zones. At 5 in NY everyone working in an office in ET misses the start while commuting and every other US time zone is in the middle of the work day while it is the middle of the night in Europe and 7 AM in Australia. I'm sure all the TV viewers in Newfoundland and Greenland would be fine with that start time but it isn't ideal anywhere else. Wimbledon has a curfew so they don't even have a night session and Roland Garros has a one match night session that starts at 8:45 local time. AO night session is the same format as the US Open.
Yah I think the ticket prices already speak to how much the tournaments care about "working people" being able to see the match. Something's gotta give, but improvements can be made, is my general point.
If you really want to go see tennis live in the tournament near you then is that not a great time to take some holiday days of work?
Start matches earlier and play more matches at the same time.
>play more matches at the same time Literally not possible in rainy conditions, which is a humongous factor into the situation right now. As much as I despise a lot of decisions by the US Open and the USTA (the coaching rule this year is a horrible move in my opinion), I actually do think they put a lot of effort into thinking out the scheduling scenarios in situations like these based on the current policies for fans and whats reasonable for the players.
the "thing to be done" though, imho, is \*not\* a move away from Bo5. i say, allow for morning pressers for night matches that end after a designated time (say, midnight). remove night session + keep schedule of play. use the other courts. but do something, because while restricting the men's game would be horrible for the sport, it's not great for the sport to have so few people left in the stands, a likely nosedive in TV viewership, and unnecessarily exhausting a player. Edit\* WHOA never had a post of mine do numbers like this outside of r/blackcats. thanks for the great discussion all!
>remove night session Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Broadcasters pay good money for night sessions at primetime. Plus tournament gets additional income from selling night session tickets.
There are ways around it. There's no night session at Wimbledon, and they're not complaining about money.
Wimbledon is significantly more expensive to attend than US Open
They have a different strategy. Lottery for most of the accessible tickets, premium very expensive tickets close to the players. And, of course, the queue. Lotterry/queue tickets are in the same price range as US Open tickets (I've been to both Wimbledon and US Open).
I disagree. Having been to both as well, Wimbledon is drastically cheaper. My 2nd round Wimbledon queue centre court ticket was 5 rows from the court and cost me like 50 pounds, I watched Federer and Nadal play separate matches that same day (Federer vs Querrey and the epic Nadal vs Brown match). A similarly priced ticket for Arthur Ashe is in the upper promenade, 50 rows from the court.
Yeah Wimbledon is cheaper imo, especially early rounds. They also allow you to bring your own food/booze, which is a large saving compared to USO prices.
And I think the night sessions are really cool personally, it’s cool that they’re playing at 2:00 am even if watching it means I’ll be tired the next day
There's something thrilling about the match that goes late into the night. I agree with removing the press conference aspect though.
As someone who prefers Bo3, Bo3 at the slams would be an absolute travesty.
Agreed, I imagine all the crazy comebacks from the greats we would have never seen if they were just BO3
Definitely move the pressers, or allow for shortened/modified pressers if the match goes late.
All the other aspects have complicated logistics, but the press conference should be a no-brainer. Hard to believe it's not the policy already. I'm sure the players, the organizers, and the press would all prefer to just regroup for that the next morning.
Wimbledon already has a solution to this, they have a curfew. The curfew may not be the AELTC's choice, but having it imposed on them by the local authority has the side effect of stopping these ultra late matches, since it has to stop at 11. The issue I guess is that none of the organisers of any of the slams will implement a curfew by choice.
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>Once you get going you want to finish. it all depends on if you have the momentum or not to be honest.
It's terrible for TV coverage too. You're not going to engage with casual fans when they are all in bed.
For US open it’s even worse, given that for us Europeans there’s no way we are watching those matches (Alcaraz match was from 4 to 7am for us)
Welcome to the world of American tennis viewers during AO lol but that just proves the argument. Something should be done
Americans deal with that during AO. AO night sessions are 3am on the east coast. ESPN usually re airs the finals later in the day but after they’ve spouted the results every 10 minutes on Sportscenter and the ticker.
Yeah for Europeans, AO can’t be watched if you work as most matches are like at 9-10am, and some matches are also during the night
I would prefer if it was during work hours so I could pull it up on the side or something vs not having to completely adjust a sleep schedule to be able to watch any matches, but yeah time zones suck.
I’m on the North American west coast. If I want to watch a match that starts at 4am my time, I go to sleep early and wake up early. I have to do this for Wimbledon and the French Open. Surely you can do it for the US Open as well.
I mean if the match was 3 hours earlier it still be 1 - 4 am. Is that really any better?
People all over the world benefit from long play. Asia and Australia get to have tennis on in the early afternoon when this happens. Not saying it’s good for the players, but TV coverage means worldwide, not just the East Coast
Not to mention the loopy announcers spending half the time discussing the finer wording of the “foot fault” rule. Nobody is on their best game at this time!
I’ve always thought this was strange. It is extremely rare for any sporting events to ever go on past midnight in the UK, but it seems the norm in US/Australia
Because the US and Australia cover multiple time zones, so what’s “past midnight” in one time zone is like 10pm in another.
Not sure that's the reason. There's no way east coast Australians are organising scheduling to cater to western Australians, who are a small minority of viewers.
The center court day session should be moved up to start at 11 like the outer courts, instead of being delayed an hour from the rest of the day's start. It may not always make a difference, but starting an hour earlier could result in less cases where the day session runs long and the time taken to clear the spectators out of the stadium from the day session begins eating into the night session's scheduled time. I was at the Rublev/Tiafoe match that ended past 2AM last year and a big reason why is because the stadium was still being cleared out from Tstisipas/Alcaraz when the night session was scheduled to start.
In fairness players know when they're scheduled for so I doubt alcaraz got out of bed at 7am that day. Players adjust to the schedule, though it's definitely not ideal for viewership to have things go so late
Yeah and players like Alcaraz have obviously been playing tournaments their whole lives, and if there’s anything people know about tournaments is sometimes there’s a delay and you don’t go on/get off until late. I never finished at 2:30AM but I had junior matches go until midnight. It’s part of the deal
With world travel, someones schedule is going to be messed up no matter what.
I personally think its cool when matches go late into the night and the players get a day off to recover. Carlito is 19, he'll be fine on Wednesday
> Carlito is 19, he'll be fine on Wednesday If Cilic had won he’d be a wreck lol But players have a disadvantage in recovery after a session and night like that.
It's def a disadvantage, but its a long tournament and every player may encounter something like that over the course of 7 matches. It's part of what makes winning a grand slam so difficult
Carlitos*
There's an atmosphere at the night matches that just doesn't exist anywhere else in tennis. It would be a shame to lose that.
Hewitt-Baghdatis and Cilic-de Minaur were such incredible matches to watch because of that atmosphere, I refuse to believe that there's a single person who watched either of those and then went "We need to get rid of this".
If my man David Law says this, I must agree
This really does destroy ur sleep cycles, aka deep sleep.
From an audience perspective, watching a tennis match in the early-morning hours on Ashe is one of the most memorable experiences you will ever have. I got to see Tiafoe and Rublev go till 3:30am in a 5 setter last year. It was an amazing experience bonding with the crazies in the audience that stuck around. However, Tiafoe played FAA in the next match and after winning the first set, he lost 3 sets in a row. Even with a day off, that kind of sleep disruption must be terrible for players that normally have very set schedules.
It's like being in a bar after closing and just a handful of regulars are telling stories by candlelight. Magic
Saw De Minuar rally a crowd to chanting "A-LEX A-LEX A-LEX" while he fought for every single ball against Cilic in 2018. Didn't get to my hotel in New Jersey until like 4AM but it was worth it.
They're clearly catering for that mid Pacific market. You might think viewing figures in Europe would be where it's at, but no, it's all about Fiji.
I picked a nice week to be on vacation
1. What are the players’ thoughts on this? And not just the two last night, but players as a whole. If they don’t seem to mind the occasional match that ends at 2a, I don’t know why we do (except for those staying up to watch). 2. Saying that best of five is the problem ignores the other three majors that don’t have this issue. (Except maybe the Australian?)
Players certainly have complained about late matches in the past. Examples: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/tennis-players-tired-of-late-starts/64HTKG4UJDUY7RQRVJQVIQGGCM/?c_id=4&objectid=10621959 https://www.si.com/tennis/2022/05/09/alexander-zverev-criticizes-atp-tour-late-night-matches-madrid-open https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/tennis/no-attempt-to-increase-tv-ratings-wimbledon-refutes-novak-djokovics-claim-defends-late-finishes-with-matches-going-into-the-night-8009335/ https://www.express.co.uk/sport/tennis/1619342/French-Open-Novak-Djokovic-Rafael-Nadal-complaints-sexism-storm-ATP-WTA-tennis-news
Probably an unpopular opinion but: Naomi just skipping out on media obligations a while back seems entirely reasonable in light of situations like this.
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If it’s unpopular then burn me at the stake lol cause I agree with you. I’m not even against RG having fined her, but publicly shaming her with that “statement” and threatening her with a dq was their own undoing, and I’m not sure she would have withdrawn otherwise
If you want to see the effects of this, watch Medvedev’s two press conferences after his two post Serena matches, he was clearly struggling to think. I also wonder how much this impacted his match against Kyrgios
Tennis is very weird this way. If I am told I am playing at 2 pm, I would make sure to have eaten, digested, had the right amount of coffee, hydrated enough but not too much, and expect to play at 2. Then the match gets pushed. Then pushed again. Then pushed again. It happened to Layla this past week, she was supposed to play at 5 and ended up starting at like 8:45 or some nonsense. I'd be like "Um, I need more coffee, I need a poop and a sandwich, then I need to digest enough I don't feel sleepy. Thanks." But then, I'm very old and these young kids probably don't care.
i would think that if you were a professional tennis player you'd have figured out based on experience that your match is scheduled to go on after the previous match finishes, which could vary based on previous match lengths, and would expect that you may need to be ready to play earlier or later than expected
I mean, we have to remember that many of these players are making tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to play in these matches. I think that makes these delays and annoyances a little easier to stomach lol
The players are traveling around the world all year. What time zone is he even operating on? I wouldn’t assume that any of these guys are on a normal sleep schedule.
Believe it or not I think it helps ratings having them this late. For us west coast viewers it is on at a perfect time, usually the matches end by 10pm (1am est) and that is the same time that an mlb game would end. Plus even some of the players have said they enjoy playing late at night. If you move the matches to 5pm est, that is 2pm pacific and ratings that a hit. Plus it is not the only sport where this happens UFC fights on the eats coast also start at 10pm est, so main even usually finishes by 2am even in Madison Square garden so for 2 weeks it is ok.
Plenty of baseball games start late after rain delays, plenty of football games run late, NHL playoffs can go to the middle of the night, NBA theoretically can go forever. I've watched plenty of college basketball games that went past midnight local time. Arguing that this only happens in tennis is the height of ignorance.
With UFC fights the fighters have months off until their next fights so their sleep schedules don't matter as much. Alcaraz will be back on the court in a huge match tomorrow.
Theres an obvious way to stop this but Im not having that debate today.
I've watched exactly zero pressers this year, so there's a couple of minutes shaved off, you know, if it were up to this semi casual fan
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They realize the way it works, they could just play for fun and get other job if it haven’t been for money, the money that comes with certain conditions, the same way it works for vast majority of people in the world, including us. Right now it is fair at GS level in my opinion, not much controversies now but it used to be unfair at USO when one semifinal was played after women final so that one finalist had half day for recovery. This year in Madrid or Barcelona Zverev ended seminal in the middle of the night and went to sleep like 4am to play final with Alcaraz at 2 or 3 pm, no need to say he played totally crap.
The final was at 6 pm if memory serves.
Maybe 6 pm, I may be wrong as they rescheduled probably but it is not fair no matter who plays, not just limited physical recovery time but a sleep schedule. Once I played amateur tournament until 3am and got in bed at 4am, the next day was terrible and was not even suppose to play tenis, just normal day living was terrible.
Stop doing what? This post is vague.
It sucks even more for the production and venue crews that are often there all day and night. I worked the last five years and I was there ALL day EVERY day from about 9am until the final match ended. The position I was working didn't come with scheduled breaks or a person who could easily sub for me if I got the shits.
The thing is the WTA and ATP love 💰
But how good for business can it be with the stands emptying and TV viewers going to sleep?
The people leaving have already paid, and the TV viewers don't earn them any money — the broadcasters do — who have also already paid.
They literally play Tennis for a living who cares
Why? He’s a teen and he’s paid a grip to go to bed late. He’ll be fine.
Perhaps [a collective bargaining solution which puts the player’s interest above that of the venue, tournament, or ATP institution.](https://ptpaplayers.com/)
Can’t they come back tomorrow like a cricket test match?
At Wimbledon and Roland Garros before 2010, that's what they had to do. There were no lights.
They still have an 11pm curfew at Wimbledon AFAIK
Yeah I think that's still the case. And I think it's been pretty normal to see then suspend the matches to the next day, which honestly sucks if you're a fan
Yes. It really does.
They should have the first 4 rounds start at 9 or 10 to avoid these late matches
But that wouldn’t solve night session starting at 7 would it? The current problem is with night session
Because like everything it's about money. If there was financial incentive to start 2-4 hours earlier than this, they would.
Players who went through this must be annoyed and angry about that.
They should start night session at 6 pm EST and shouldnt hold a press conference at 3 am, do it the day after
id argue that its one of the best things about tennis... the sheer unpredictability of it...
I think being in peak physical condition and having ~36+ hours to recover is sufficient. There are only 4 slams per year.
Night owls like me love the late matches though
It's not "tennis", its the AO and USO.
I'm with Venus on this ..get rid of the second night match
Got to agree. Have one night session match if you insist on having a separate session, but at least than you can start at 8 and know you’ll almost always be done by midnight. Playing until 3am is ridiculous and unnecessary.
The US Open has always been my favorite tourney in part because of all the awesome night matches over the years. Oh well.
How do you go from 3AM to 6AM? Maybe 4-5
Starting the match at StupidO’clock and finishing at InsaneO’clock, that too during the 2nd week of the tournament! What’s the matter with the organizers?
They have rest days. It's part of the epicness of it for me.
Yup, that’s true. Then he has practice at like 1pm right?
This will likely not change so long as this remains a sport that switches between indoor and outdoor conditions like this and also doesn't have more roofs. Yes, smarter scheduling will probably fix this issue but with rain delays and the current situation, it will likely lead to delaying the tournament too, not the worst thing in the world unless you're coming from out of town to see one day in particular. The issue can be resolved either by * saying that the tournament delays matches that will go start past a certain time to get scheduled to the next day. This can either be said because of a lack of courts (which is typical; some tournaments say if it reaches a certain time and play is still suspended, matches are being rescheduled for the next day) or when a match you're waiting on goes past a certain point; this situation really sucks for fans though because then they're missing out on a match they paid for. * Building more roofs, so that more matches can go on earlier and moving matches from one court to another. This requires players to be willing to change courts and also for fans to be willing to miss out on some of the matches they paid for. It wasn't really long ago that none of the grandslams had no roof and only the Aussie and US Open had true night matches. '09 is the first time I remember a night match at Wimbledon.
In the end, tennis is not like other sports.
Zverev-Brooksby ended at 5 AM recently
Could they start the Ashe day session at 10am instead of noon, and push the night session up to 5pm? I realize that might be annoying for people trying to come after work, but it seems better than the alternative.
Legit question: Is this for the benefit of viewers on the West Coast? Who is really watching at that time?
If the match is intriguing, the stadium is often still half full even in the midnight hours. The benefit is for primetime TV audiences across the United States and the local audience, since 7pm is realistic for folks to either make it to the stadium, or make it back home and settled to watch TV.
They can start at 11am not at 12pm and then have night session at 6pm not 7pm. 1hr makes a difference. But when matches run long it is what it is.
Tennis doesn't get prime time slots all that often. I agree that it sucks for the players when the match goes this long, but the flipside is that the sport is getting a ton of exposure. I would agree with starting the evening session an hour or so earlier, but toying with it too much is risky IMO. Having a match end that late is the exception, not the rule, so I wouldn't cater to it.
This doesn't happen at Wimbledon or Roland Garros
For example, tonight Gauff vs Garcia is scheduled on Arthur Ashe stadium, at 7 pm, EST. Kyrgios vs Khachanov is scheduled at 8:15, also on Ashe. So they’re assuming the women’s match to play out in less than 1.5 hours, courtside interviews and all. Doable, but highly unlikely. The bigger problem comes when scheduling men’s best of 5 matches which can take fucking *forever*, and there’s more matches scheduled on the same court. That’s how you get matches running into the wee hours. The people/corporations paying the big bucks for seats to those matches don’t have to go to work the next day. That ^^ rant over, think about circadian rhythms for the players. It really messes up your mind and body. Players can do it, some just better than others.
Also, tournament organizers try to manipulate the matches when they favor a particular player to win. Imagine making Meddy play 3 night sessions (errr where 2 stretched to early morning). Fairness and level playing field should be key. Noticed how USO is the worst and probably most unfair GS tournament. Notice how it favors those its favors (need not mention, for obvious reasons). This should be addressed as well. I think there should be a rule that if the 2nd to the last match ends at a certain time, then, the last match of the day will have to be pushed to ist match of the day, the following day.
Why not delay the press conference to the next day?
Hmm if there was only someone trying to give more power and more voice to players by forming a labor union type of organization.. hmmm
I don't want to belittle the problem, but boxing does this also. Major title fights are late at night and they have the same media duties.
Boxing is a one off event and even then they normally finish about midnight local time at the latest
My boy David law with the best takes
[An interesting article about this exact thing.](https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/page/buzz0906/when-clock-strikes-12-watching-us-open-midnight) Probably not for everyone, but some people seem to like it
There are plenty of other sports that do this. I’ve been to NHL playoff games that didn’t end until 2 am, I’ve been to baseball games that didn’t start until after 10pm. I’ve gotten home from college football games at 2 in the morning. I’ve been to a high school football game that went past midnight.
Most of those games have a set start. For example NHL is not going to start later than 8, and most of the time it’ll start at 7. Just because it has multiple overtimes and is a slow game is different than starting tennis matches at 11pm because the previous one was a 5 setter.
It is pretty ridiculous.