{"id":107244,"date":"2025-08-24T19:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/107244\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T19:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:50:07","slug":"what-do-us-open-tennis-players-think-about-a-sunday-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/107244\/","title":{"rendered":"What do US Open tennis players think about a Sunday start?"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova<\/a> made clear they didn\u2019t love the idea of starting a Grand Slam tournament on a Sunday instead of a Monday when the French Open was the first to do it nearly 20 years ago and they were on the schedule for the new, earlier Day 1.<\/p>\n

Now that the trend has reached the U.S. Open<\/a> this year, not every current player is exactly a proponent of the switch, either \u2014 even if the crowds were gathering on-site Sunday morning before the start of competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate the Sunday start,\u201d said Jordan Thompson<\/a>, an Australian who\u2019s been ranked as high as No. 26 in singles and No. 3 in doubles. \u201cTournaments don\u2019t start on Sunday; they finish on Sunday. Pretty sure no player would like (it), particularly me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, Thompson was scheduled to face Corentin Moutet on Sunday as things got going at Flushing Meadows, where there will now be 15 days of singles competition instead of 14<\/a>, and there\u2019s little doubt that more money from all sorts of sources was part of the calculus behind the change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really a fan of it. I don\u2019t know why they had to make it even longer. Well, I know why they did it \u2014 they get to sell tickets for an extra day,\u201d said 2024 U.S. Open runner-up Jessica Pegula<\/a>, this year\u2019s No. 4 seed, who was due in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday night to play against Mayar Sherif. \u201cI\u2019m not really for it. I don\u2019t think a lot of the players were for it, especially those who play the week before a Slam. It makes everything a little longer and a little harder. I don\u2019t think a lot of players want that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pegula cited this move by the U.S. Tennis Association \u2014 which followed the French Tennis Federation\u2019s decision to begin on Sunday in 2006, and the Australian Open\u2019s move to do the same in 2024 \u2014 as an example of her sport\u2019s repeated failure to ask for, or follow up on, athletes\u2019 input. Wimbledon is now the lone major that starts on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, they ask for player feedback and when we do (respond), they don\u2019t listen to anything we say,\u201d said Pegula, one of 20 players who signed a letter<\/a> in March sent to the people who run the Grand Slam events to ask for better communication, more contributions to player welfare and a higher share of revenue. \u201cThe way they go about announcing these things, sometimes players aren\u2019t aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

This also comes at a time that players have complained about the recent shift to longer non-Slam tournaments that last more than a week.<\/p>\n

Those in charge of tennis point to higher prize money that comes from those extended tournaments \u2014 and changes such as the extra day have coincided with increases in prize money<\/a>, which is up to a record $85 million, including $5 million to each singles champion, at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

USTA spokesman Brendan McIntyre said adding a 15th day of singles not only can \u201cprovide more fans the opportunity to see main draw singles competition in person, but also gives fans around the globe the opportunity to watch … (on television) on a weekend day and night.\u201d<\/p>\n

No. 6 seed Ben Shelton was the opening act in Ashe at noon on Sunday, and said before his 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Peruvian qualifier Ignacio Buse that he understood why tournaments would want an extra weekend day of ticket sales \u2014 and he was pleased to be on the side of the men\u2019s draw that went first.<\/p>\n

Still, there are players, such as Thompson, two-time U.S. Open semifinalist Frances Tiafoe or Matteo Arnaldi of Italy, who said it\u2019s a mistake to set things up so someone who makes a tournament debut on Sunday and wins wouldn\u2019t play again until Wednesday, a change to the every-other-day rhythm at the Slams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I get it,\u201d Tiafoe, an American who is seeded 17th and plays his first match Monday, said about the Sunday opening. \u201cWhy not? If you can make money on a day and get the guys out there, and we\u2019re already all here anyway (on what used to be) kind of a dead day … it\u2019s not a bad thing. But the two days off that early in a Slam? It\u2019s a little weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Howard Fendrich has been the AP\u2019s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https:\/\/apnews.com\/author\/howard-fendrich<\/a>. More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova made clear they didn\u2019t love the idea of starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[431,70796,29384,15511,793,22705,70795,23004,70793,70797,13753,70794,2005,1999,4037,99,428,31291,965],"class_list":["post-107244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ben-shelton","tag-brendan-mcintyre","tag-corentin-moutet","tag-frances-tiafoe","tag-general-news","tag-howard-fendrich","tag-ignacio-buse","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-jordan-thompson","tag-maiar-sherif-ahmed-abdelaziz","tag-maria-sharapova","tag-matteo-arnaldi","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-roger-federer","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}