A former Italian tennis star and renowned commentator has asserted that US Open chiefs “decided to kill tennis” after Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz’s late night epic at Flushing Meadows.
Shelton overcame Alcaraz in a fifth-set tiebreak in a quarter-final blockbuster on Arthur Ashe Stadium court at the 2026 US Open.
The match did not start until after 11pm on Tuesday in New York, and the pulsating four-hour-and-28-minute battle reached its conclusion at 3:33am on Wednesday.
This is the latest match finish time in US Open history, with Alcaraz’s five-set quarter-final win over Jannik Sinner at the 2022 US Open the previous record holder, having finished at 2:50am.
Paolo Bertolucci, a former world No 12 who is a tennis commentator for Sky in Italy, made some damning comments about the US Open scheduling in a series of posts on X/Twitter.
“They’ve decided to kill tennis,” wrote Bertolucci, who won six ATP Tour singles titles.
“Over four hours of a match that ends at 3:30 in the morning. Then they despair over absences due to injuries. Shame!!!
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“Asking an athlete to perform at 3 a.m. means pursuing a diabolical plan designed to destroy tennis.
“One year without [Holger] Rune and [Jack] Draper. Months in the stands for Alcaraz, [Lorenzo] Musetti, and [Jannik] Sinner. Please, keep it up like this….”
The record-breaking Shelton-Alcaraz contest was not the first match to finish well after midnight at this year’s US Open.
Earlier in the tournament, Alexander Zverev’s five-set victories in the first and second round ended at 1:55am and 2:15am respectively.
Sofia Kenin’s opening round win against Venus Williams started at 12:13am — setting the record for the latest start in US Open history — and it concluded just before 2am.
After Zverev’s second round win, former world No 4 Greg Rusedski urged US Open bosses to find a solution to the night session scheduling problem.
“Well, I think you need to find some sort of solution,” said the 1997 US Open finalist.
“The conundrum you have is, do you have one match from eight o’clock, or one match from seven o’clock?
“When you have a men’s and a women’s match, whichever starts first, somebody’s going past midnight usually — if you get a three set match in the women’s, or if you get a five set match in the men’s.
“And I think it’s brutal because there’s no time limit, and that’s where we need to find the balance.”
Rusedski added: “It’s really tricky for the tournaments, but I think there has to be a solution, because we shouldn’t have athletes playing that late in the evening. There’s no other sport in the world that does it.”
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