Craig Tiley, the newly appointed chief executive of the USTA, has confirmed to Sky Sports Tennis that the tournament will retain its current format of featuring two daytime matches and two evening matches at Flushing Meadows for the 2027 edition. Tiley, who stepped into the USTA’s top role earlier this year after a decade leading Tennis Australia, made it clear that no major alterations to the schedule are being considered.
His remarks come on the heels of a marathon quarter‑final that saw Ben Shelton battle Carlos Alcaraz for nearly five hours, a contest that finally concluded at 3:33 a.m. local time on Wednesday. The match, which stretched well beyond the usual midnight cutoff, left only a handful of fans awake to witness the dramatic finish on one of tennis’s grandest stages.
Historically, players have cherished the unique atmosphere of night matches under the bright lights of New York City, a setting that adds a palpable electric charge to the competition. Yet the 2026 US Open already set a new record with three matches ending after 2 a.m.
within the first six days, and two additional contests spilling past 1 a.m. This trend has sparked a broader conversation about player welfare, prize‑money distribution, and the overall working conditions on the tour, with late finishes emerging as a flashpoint in the debate. Other Grand Slam events have taken steps to curb excessively late endings.
Wimbledon now enforces an 11 p.m. curfew, while the French Open limits night sessions to a single match per day. The Australian Open, however, continues to face criticism for its notoriously late finishes, mirroring the challenges currently confronting the US Open.
In response to the growing concern, some have suggested moving the start of evening sessions to an earlier hour, such as 7 p.m., to give spectators more time to travel from their jobs to Flushing Meadows. Organisers, however, argue that New York’s tennis‑obsessed fan base expects a full day‑and‑night experience, and adjusting the schedule could disrupt the delicate balance of crowd management and broadcast commitments. Tiley addressed these issues directly, saying, "I hear from a lot of people that it finishes too late and then I say, okay, and your suggestion is?
I don't get anything. You can't control the length of the match.
What's really interesting is that in the last ten years the amount of tennis from when you hit a point to when a point stops has been about the same. But the length of the matches on the men's side has increased by an average of about 25 minutes. That's because we now have the shot clock, so everyone is taking their time, and we have the towels here which takes a bit more time and so the whole length of it is a bit longer.
Not that much longer, but in fact the average time of the men's matches today is still not in the top four average times in the last ten years. While it feels really late, the reality is you've got to go and look at the data. But that being said, no one wants to finish at 3:30 a.m., although the rest of the world in the daytime saw a pretty amazing match." He went on to defend the two‑day, two‑night format, noting that fans appreciate the mix of a women's match and a marquee men's encounter in each session.
"We really like the two days and two nights. Two full sessions and you get a women's match and a great men's match, and that's what our fans are telling us.
They can come out and see three, four, five hours of entertainment and if it goes really long like the other night, that's a great sporting ticket so I will keep it," Tiley added. The tournament’s social media team even embraced the late‑night drama with a light‑hearted post inviting fans to fill in a blank, asking them to write a note to their bosses asking for time off after the epic Shelton‑Alcaraz showdown.
The tweet read: "We understand how important showing up is, but sometimes you have to make time for things you're passionate about. Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton put on an absolute stellar performance during their US Open quarter‑final, and ______ was a fully committed fan who was completely locked in from start to finish." Beyond schedule tweaks, another recurring suggestion is to shorten men’s matches in the early rounds to best‑of‑three sets. This idea remains controversial, as many purists view five‑set battles as a defining feature of Grand Slam tennis.
Former US Open champion Frances Tiafoe weighed in, saying, "I think for the men we should stick with three out of five. I don't know where the conversation is going, what people are leaning to.
Everyone is going to have an opinion, everyone is different. We've seen so many epics in five‑setters. Do I love five‑setters?
Absolutely not. There's a lot of times where I'm up two sets to love and I'd love to shake hands and go home. But it's tennis, man." Despite the ongoing debate, the US Open remains a marquee event on Sky Sports, with live coverage slated to begin on August 30.
Fans can also stream matches without a contract via the NOW platform or the Sky Sports app, and the tournament will continue to showcase its signature blend of high‑stakes drama, night‑time spectacle, and the unique energy that only New York can provide.