Tennis stars are increasingly dueling into the early hours of the morning at Grand Slam tournaments. This triggers problems and discussions. Three-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray calls on those responsible to take action.
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- Time and again, the night sessions at the US Open in New York - and at Grand Slam tournaments in general - go on until 2 or 3 in the morning. The final matches sometimes take place in front of almost empty stands.
- If the night matches go on too long, this causes problems for spectators and tennis stars alike.
- The players' union PTPA is now drawing attention to the increased risk of injury. And former professional Andy Murray rages: "It looks absolutely amateurish when matches last until 2, 3 or 4 o'clock."
Early Monday morning at 2.15 a.m. local time, Zheng Qinwen has made it. The Chinese player converts her second match point against Donna Vekic and advances to the quarter-finals of this year's US Open. At this point, however, there are only a few hundred fans left in the huge Arthur Ashe Stadium.
It was a similar picture in the first week of the tournament, when Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka's third-round match could not begin until after midnight. German Alexander Zverev's victory over Argentinian Tomas Martin Etcheverry meant he was on court until 02:35.
The rising trend
However, the US Open record is still held by Carlos Alcaraz, who only won his quarter-final against Jannik Sinner at 2.50 a.m. in 2022. The match did indeed get the spectators still in attendance out of their seats. But the long night matches cause problems. The fans can no longer get home on public transport, the players lose their sleep rhythm and are unable to recover as hoped until the next match.
Six of the nine longest nights in the history of the US Open have come in the last three years. But it's not just in New York that the trend is on the rise. For the past two years, there have also been tennis spectacles in Paris until the early hours of the morning. At this year's French Open, Novak Djokovic's third round match ended after 3am. Three days and another five-set thriller later, the Serb has to withdraw from the tournament.
"It looks absolutely amateurish"
The players' union PTPA is now drawing attention to the risk of injury. "There needs to be more focus on players' health," demands representative Romain Rosenberg and makes it clear in an interview with the news agency dpa: "It's no wonder that players are broken and injured at tournaments. The physical and mental fatigue is real." Rosenberg hopes that the timing of a match can be better assessed.
However, this is a difficult task at Grand Slam tournaments and the men's best-of-five matches. The women's best-of-three matches also vary between one and three hours. And finally, the desire for fewer night matches is not very pronounced among the organizers. "It's part of the appeal. It's something our fans love," Lew Sherr, CEO of the organizing US Tennis Association, makes clear. "It's the city that never sleeps."
Andy Murray, however, thinks little of this. "The tennis schedule is a total mess," writes the recently retired Brit on social media and calls on those responsible to take action: "It looks absolutely amateurish when matches last until 2, 3 or 4 o'clock. Solve that!"
