By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
New York Is known as the “City That Never Sleeps” and that certainly was the case at the 2024 U.S. Open…again.
Despite verbalizing some efforts to help prevent matches running late, the U.S. Tennis Association, unfortunately, experienced another year where matches extended passed 1 am and 2 am. The 2024 tournament featured the second latest finish ever (Alexander Zverev beating Tomas Etcheverry at 2:35 am), the latest ever finish for a women’s match (Qinwen Zheng defeating Donna Vekic at 2:15 am) and the second latest finishing women’s match (Aryna Sabalenka beating Ekaterina Alexandrova at 1:48 am, which was also was also the latest STARTING women’s match at 12:08 am)
However, this is something that is not so easily controlled as a match can last as short as seven minutes or as long as five hours and 35 minutes, which was exactly the match times of the shortest and longest matches at the 2024 U.S. Open. You can’t run out the clock in tennis as they like to say in the sport. Now, it is fun to have a really late night match as an aberration or an outlier, but it shouldn’t be something that happens once or even twice every year.
Here are some of my thoughts on how to solve this issue.
11 AM DAY SESSION START ON ASHE
The two late night sessions in Ashe in 2024 were a direct result of the day session running long. When Sabalenka and Alexandrova finished at 1:48 am, the night session started well over an hour later than the usual 7 pm start because of the length of the two day sessions matches, a 2:03 three-set match between Coco Gauff vs. Elina Svitolina and then the 4:03 five-set match between France Tiafoe and Ben Shelton. Novak Djokovic and Alexei Popyrin then played the first night match and that four-set match lasted 3:19, further backing up play.
The day session on Ashe starts at noon, rather than 11 am on the outer courts. The USTA used to also start the stadium matches at 11 am (and also featured three stadium matches) but changed to two matches to prevent matches from interfering with the start of the 7 pm night session start and to a noon start to accommodate ESPN which starts its broadcast at noon. If the USTA really wants to prevent these late night matches, it should return to the 11 am start and if ESPN really doesn’t want to have great US Open might matches concluding in a more ratings-friendly time, they would agree with this. I believe the reason why ESPN doesn’t start its broadcast until noon is they have highly-rated morning sports talk shows that they don’t want to surrender the tennis to. However, ESPN could further air and promote the 11 am to noon window on its pay service ESPN+ and use it as an additional advertisement and promotion to subscribe to that service.
There is the issue that if the day session on Ashe Stadium starts at 11 am, and there are only two matches scheduled during the day session, there could be an issue with the Ashe session ending too early. However, as the USTA did twice in the first week in 2024 when this happened, they put doubles matches on as a third “bonus” match to fill the gap before the night session started at 7 pm, with time for the stadium to clear and be cleaned before the night fans arrive. The USTA could pre-plan to have a two-out-of-three-set doubles match (that lasts shorter than a singles match) that can put on the schedule and can be moved to Ashe in the case of two blowout matches, to start at not before 2:30 or so.
The USTA can kill two birds with one stone with this 11 am start as one of the big complaints from fans has been overcrowding on the grounds. This most noticeably happens when 23,000-plus fans wait to get in for the Ashe night session when the day session runs long, but they are waiting for the 23,000 Ashe day session fans who are still on the stands. If you start an hour earlier at 11 am, this is less likely to happen.
NIGHT SESSIONS SHOULD ALSO BE WOMEN BEFORE MEN
Women play best of three set matches and men play best of five set matches, so by common sense, the women should always start first since their matches will end earlier. It is a complete indignity for a player to START a match after 11 pm or after midnight. So since a five-set match can potentially go four hours and a three-set match can potentially go for about two-and-a-half hours, you have to start the women first. Fans who pay for tickets do want to see at least part of the second match if it is a long session, but if the first match is four hours, fans are going to leave before the second match starts (perhaps even before the first one ends!) The USTA said before the tournament that they would look to potentially start an Ashe Stadium match on another court if that match had not started by 11:15. However, the USTA chose not to, or couldn’t implement this on the two occasions when this happened (perhaps due to not having officials, ball people or TV or court maintenance crew available). However, if the women play the first match of the night session, this would not happen as the women’s match would have to be four hours long for a match not to take the court by 11:15 pm (which almost never happens.)
People will say that women should have to play late (or second) as well because they have to “earn” their equal prize money. This is really silly to compare based on the number of sets played. My argument has always been with regard to comparing men and women and equal prize money in the best-of-three set matches vs. best-of-five-set matches is Doctor Zhivago a better movie at 3 hours and 17 minutes than The Graduate, which is 1 hour, 46 minutes? (or for those younger folks, is Babylon a better movie at 3 hours and 8 minutes than Top Gun Maverick at 2 hours, 11 minutes?) Entertainment is entertainment no matter how long it is. Starting the women first on the night sessions will at least mostly prevent matches from starting at ridiculous hours.
MOVE THE PROGRAM ALONG FASTER
Sure, there is a shot clock to help players start points faster, but play, in general, can certainly be sped up. So many players take breaks between sets going to the locker room to change clothes, go to the bathroom, or just for gamesmanship. One decades-long tennis writer quipped to me “Do players need to pee more than they did in the 1970s?” Sometimes these breaks last 10 minutes or more. This needs to be tightened up and players should face a code violation if they take too long in the bathroom. If a player argues a call, they should also be put on the clock. Players take too many injury timeouts as well. Shouldn’t you be rewarded for being in better shape and stronger and participate in injury prevention? All treatments should be taking place on the 90-second changeovers.
Also, pre-match and post-match interviews are fantastic entertainment and TV, but let’s keep the pre-match questions to two (or even one if it’s a long good answer) and the post-match on-court interview should be only three questions. This can obviously be taken on a case by case basis, depending on the time circumstances. Autograph signing and selfie-taking can also prohibited courtside after a match as they delays the player from exiting the court and delays the start of the next match. I’m sure fans in expensive courtside seats don’t appreciate people rushing down around their seats in the last game of the match to get in position for autographs. The tournament can set up more autograph sessions after practice or on off days for players on the grounds.
Before Zheng and Vekic took the court for their late night epic, I swear it was at least 20 minutes before they took the court after the Djokovic vs. Popyrin match. Certainly some sponsor signs need to be changed and other details, but try to speed it up. Also, when a match time is advertised as starting at 11 am or noon or 7 pm, it usually means the players walk on the court at seven minutes passed the hour and the first point being played at like 20 minutes after the hour. How about players walk on the court at five minutes before the top of the hour and then ball up is 15 minutes later. Many of these examples are a bit petty and don’t take away that much time, but it all adds up. Five minutes here, there, here, there, here and there is 30 minutes.
THESE ARE THINGS YOU CAN’T DO TO PREVENT LATE NIGHT FINISHES
There was a lot of dialogue in person and on social media about how to prevent late finishes. Here are some arguments that I can quickly shoot down and can say are not good ideas…
- Some say the night session should start at 6 pm. The night session should always start at 7 pm and not earlier because working New Yorkers don’t get off work right at 5 pm. They work later and it takes a while for them to get to Queens to get to the tennis.
- Some say the nigh session should only be one match. There should always be two matches in a night session, for the same above reason. There needs to be protection against a quick match so there needs to be a guarantee of at the very least three hours of tennis for the night ticket holder. The night sessions are one of the best things about the U.S. Open. Let’s not make it last only two hours.
- The men should play best-of-three set matches. The men should always play best of five sets. Imagine you had the first night session ticket for the first session of tennis at the USTA National Tennis Center in 1978? You would have seen Bjorn Borg beat Bob Hewitt 6-0, 6-2 and Tracy Austin beat Trish Bostrom 6-0, 6-1. Would you feel like you got your money’s worth? The men did play best-of-three sets in early rounds for a few years in the 1970s, but then it was abandoned because of circumstances like this.
- Putting doubles as the second night match is from an era gone by. Almost every night session at every pro event in the country used to always have doubles as the second match. However, this is when there was an increased interest in doubles when star players played. Unfortunately, interest in doubles has waned significantly in recent years due to stars mainly playing singles. There have been circumstances when doubles has had a presence in night sessions, when it has involved the Williams sisters, the Jensen Brothers or Anna Kournikova. Perhaps, if there is an attractive enough match, a doubles match could be put on as a second match on a night card. Perhaps even move the doubles competition along quicker in the fortnight and have the men’s, women’s or mixed doubles championship match be played as part of a night session during the second week, but this would be a challenge.
