The US Open came under fire for a myriad of reasons in 2026, with several players and pundits particularly unhappy about how late matches were finishing.
Most of the night sessions finished past midnight at Flushing Meadows this year, with Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz’s quarter final finishing several hours later.
It was 03:33 when Shelton confirmed his place in the semi finals of the US Open, which many called out for being unsustainable for players’ health.
John Lloyd, who has previously been very critical of the tennis schedule, has now slammed the tournament for allowing players to play so late.
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“It’s total utter nonsense. They keep saying, ‘Well, what are we going to do about it?’ There’s only one thing. You can’t have a product that finishes past midnight regularly. You cannot, it cannot work that way,” said Lloyd on the Inside-In Tennis podcast.
“And you can’t start the matches any earlier because you don’t know what the afternoon matches are going to be like. When you’ve got best of five set matches, it’s unpredictable.
“And today’s best of five, it’s only going to get more and more because the physicality of these players, the match is going to go longer and longer and the everyone keeps saying, well, is there a way we can do something?
“Yes, you have a men’s best of three and a women’s best of three case. You can’t put two women’s on because the matches will you won’t have enough matches to go through the second week if you do that. And so, you know, a best of three set men’s and a best of three set women’s.”
Lloyd believes tennis fans would be absolutely happy to receive a men’s and women’s match, so he sees no reason not to strip the format back for men.
“That’s three hours minimum of tennis. That’s plenty. Why does tennis have to have five or six hours to make people happy? It’s nonsense. It’s total nonsense,” he said.
“And then the other argument is saying that it separates the men from the boys. Again, that’s nonsense. If that was the case, then the top players wouldn’t be winning the Masters Series.
“And the vast majority of the time when they’re focused, they do win it because the best players will win no matter what. They will come through.”
Several matches went the distance at the US Open this year, with 25 matches in the men’s draw needing five sets to reach a conclusion.
