Should Grand Slam tennis still be finishing at 3:33am?

The night session between Pegula and Navarro was scheduled for 7 p.m., although it did not begin until after 8:30 p.m. due to the lengthy transition between sessions. This included the time needed to prepare the court, particularly the process of clearing the day-session crowd and allowing the night-session spectators to enter.

It took another two hours and 21 minutes for Pegula to defeat Navarro 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. As a result, Alcaraz and Shelton did not take the court until after 11 p.m. local time. Once they finally took the court, neither player was responsible for how late the night would become. Shelton eventually defeated Alcaraz 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(7) after four hours and 28 minutes, surviving a deciding-set tiebreak to reach the semi-finals.

The irony is that the quality of the match makes the scheduling debate harder rather than easier. This was exactly the type of contest that Grand Slam tennis is supposed to produce: five sets, momentum swings and a deciding-set tiebreak between two of the sport's biggest names. The problem is not that Shelton and Alcaraz took too long. The problem is that the structure left them starting so late that a normal long match became an extraordinary finish.

The US Open's model creates the problem

The US Open has embraced late-night tennis for years, with the separate day and night sessions offering clear commercial benefits. The format allows the tournament to sell the same stadium twice in one day while placing its biggest matches in a prime-time television window. But that model depends on the earlier matches finishing within a reasonable timeframe, something tennis can never guarantee.

The problem becomes particularly acute in the second week, when the men's singles schedule is concentrated entirely on Arthur Ashe Stadium. A match can last less than two hours or stretch beyond four, and there is no obvious alternative once the tournament falls behind. One long quarterfinal or semifinal can therefore push every subsequent match deeper into the night, leaving players with little control over when they will actually begin.

That creates a difficult balance for the US Open. Moving matches to another court would affect capacity, ticketing, security and the experience of thousands of spectators, while clearing a stadium of roughly 25,000 people in the early hours is itself a major logistical challenge.

The tournament's scheduling model therefore offers significant commercial value, but it also creates a structural vulnerability that becomes increasingly visible when long matches turn the evening session into an overnight one.

This is becoming more than a one-off

The strongest argument that something has to change is the frequency with which these finishes are occurring. Alcaraz himself was previously involved in the US Open's late-finish record, when his 2022 match against Jannik Sinner ended at 2:50am. At the time, it was treated as an extraordinary consequence of an extraordinary match. In 2026, the same explanation is becoming harder to use.

Four matches at this year's tournament have now finished after 2am, while several others have gone beyond 1am. Venus Williams was also involved in one of the most notable examples, with her first-round match not beginning until after midnight before eventually finishing around 2am. One marathon can be part of Grand Slam folklore. A repeated pattern suggests that the schedule itself deserves scrutiny.

That scrutiny is not coming only from players. Fans were already complaining about the delay before Shelton and Alcaraz began, with some questioning why another show court could not be used to prevent the schedule from falling so far behind. By the time the final point was played at 3:33am, the issue had gone beyond inconvenience and become a question of whether the tournament's current priorities are sustainable.

For the players, the consequences are also greater than losing one night's sleep. A match finishing at 3:33am can affect post-match treatment, nutrition, hydration, media obligations and recovery before the following round.

Aryna Sabalenka has previously noted that extremely late finishes can disrupt a player's entire routine, while Venus described her own past-midnight experience as "not ideal" and questioned whether other sports regularly ask athletes to compete so late.

What could actually change?

The most obvious alternative would be to use another major court more aggressively in the later rounds, particularly when the schedule is already falling behind. A second show court would not prevent long matches, but it could stop one contest from holding the entire evening hostage. If one quarter-final lasted four or five hours, another could still begin elsewhere rather than waiting for the first court to finish.

There are clear drawbacks. Arthur Ashe has the largest capacity and the strongest atmosphere at the US Open, and moving a quarter-final elsewhere would reduce the number of spectators able to watch it. It would also force organizers to decide which matches deserve the biggest stadium, potentially creating new controversies around player status, commercial value and ticketing.

A hard curfew is another possibility, although it would create a different set of problems. If a match reached 1am or 2am while still being contested in the fifth set, the tournament would have to suspend play and bring the players back the following day. That is not unprecedented in Grand Slam tennis, but it would introduce another recovery and scheduling complication rather than simply eliminating the problem.

Earlier starts could also reduce the risk without changing the basic structure. The difficulty is that the US Open's current day-and-night model is built around selling separate sessions, so moving the schedule forward could have commercial consequences.

Every potential solution therefore involves a trade-off between the tournament's revenue model, the spectator experience and the demands placed on the players.

The US Open has a decision to make

This is why the debate is more complicated than simply calling the schedule a disaster. The US Open has legitimate reasons for putting its biggest matches in Arthur Ashe and protecting its most valuable television windows. Players, however, have equally legitimate expectations around recovery, while fans buying night-session tickets can reasonably expect to leave the grounds before the early hours of the morning.

The tournament cannot eliminate every late finish. Men's Grand Slam matches are played over five sets, and some will inevitably turn into unpredictable marathons. The objective should therefore not be to remove uncertainty from the schedule, but to prevent the existing system from making the consequences of one long match even worse. That is where the Shelton-Alcaraz quarter-final becomes particularly relevant.

The match itself was not an organizational failure. It was a spectacular Grand Slam contest that deserved to reach a fifth set, but starting close to midnight and finishing at 3:33 a.m. raises a different question. The US Open has to consider whether too much of the burden created by its scheduling model is ultimately being passed on to players and spectators, particularly when extreme finishes become increasingly common.

There is no single obvious solution. A curfew, earlier session starts, greater use of other courts or a combination of those measures would all carry financial and logistical consequences. But the longer the tournament continues to produce 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. finishes, the harder it becomes to describe them simply as unavoidable quirks of Grand Slam tennis.

Shelton and Alcaraz may have created one of the tournament's most memorable matches, but the 3:33 a.m. finish also left the US Open with a scheduling problem that will not disappear on its own.