{"id":859891,"date":"2026-09-25T06:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859891\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T06:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:56:16","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-still-irate-over-330-a-m-us-open-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859891\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz still irate over 3:30 a.m. US Open finish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carlos Alcaraz seemed to be sending a message to the U.S. Open when he met with reporters in London on Thursday, calling it \u201ctoo much\u201d when discussing the early-morning marathon match with Ben Shelton in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n<p>Late finishes at Grand Slams have become more common in recent years, but Alcaraz\u2019s loss to Shelton dragged on until 3:33 a.m., marking the latest finish in U.S. Open history, surpassing the previous record of 2:50 a.m. set by Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor an athlete finishing at 3:30 in the morning, it means we had to leave the courts at 4:30, then back to the hotel,\u201d Alcaraz explained, <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/article\/carlos-alcaraz-calls-for-end-to-late-night-finishes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to Front Office Sports<\/a>. \u201cYou don\u2019t go to bed until 6:30 or 7 in the morning. To recover for the next match, the person you play has an advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carlos Alcaraz attends a press conference ahead of the Laver Cup tennis tournament at The O2 in London on Sept. 24, 2026. Adam Davy\/PA via AP<\/p>\n<p>Alcaraz and Shelton played a quarterfinal match for the ages that went five sets and had tennis fans on the edge of their seats as Shelton upset the former World No. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A domino effect earlier on the day of that particular match ended up pushing start times back, and the first night session match didn\u2019t start until around 8:20 p.m, over an hour later than scheduled.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a shame a match like this didn\u2019t reach a lot of people because they have to go to bed, they have to work in the morning,\u201d he added. \u201cIf that match had started at 7 or 8 p.m., at the maximum finishing at 11, the stadium would have been packed. A lot had to miss it because of the schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even with the late start for the quarterfinal match between Alcaraz and Shelton, ESPN averaged 1.3 million viewers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Carlos Alcaraz of Team Europe plays a backhand during a practice session ahead of Laver Cup 2026 at The O2 in London on Sept. 24, 2026. Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n<p>Carlos Alcaraz, left, and Ben Shelton are pictured during the US Open in New York, Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Best Image \/ BACKGRID<\/p>\n<p>USTA director Craig Tiley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/tennis\/news\/13583815\/us-open-chief-craig-tiley-tells-sky-sports-tennis-he-plans-on-keeping-day-and-night-format-at-flushing-meadows-in-2027\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">defended the scheduling to Sky Sports<\/a> earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hear from a lot of people that it finishes too late and then I say, OK, and your suggestion is? I don\u2019t get anything,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t control the length of the match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz seemed to be sending a message to the U.S. Open when he met with reporters in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[2073,99,428,14687],"class_list":["post-859891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-us-open-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859891","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=859891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}