I've been betting "no ace this game" for every game for the last hour and now I can retire Now the lines are -700 so I think they caught on
They need to do a much better job scheduling. Start Ashe at 11 am. Start the night session at 6 pm. Stop putting the men on last 3 nights in a row. It is terrible for the sport that this incredible match of the 2 best young players is being played at fucking 1 am ET with a depleted stadium and no one able to watch. 3 straight nights of mens tennis with good matches until 1 and 2 am is not a good way to have ratings or grow the sport. /rant
Good memory, it was 2:26. They showed it the other night, strangely there's a 3-way tie for latest match ever and they all ended at 2:26. The other night's was 2:23 iirc
I just remember it from living in Dallas. Laying in bed watching the match. Falling asleep and waking it up and still going on
we've been waiting for this generation to arrive for as long as tmb has been around and its finally here
Sinner with maturity and coaching edge. Carlos will have fitness edge. I havent liked Carlos' position since midway in 2nd.
Sinner developing the mental game he has since that run at Roland Garros a few years back is beautiful
Damn. Ruud is going to be the new #1, isn't he. Edit: Actually, here's an even worse scenario - Sinner beats Acaraz so Ruud goes to #1... and then Ruud goes out in the semis, so not only is the new #1 someone that hasn't made a slam final but we've also got Khachanov in the final.
Sleep be damned - this is great stuff. Echo all those saying that the only negative about this match is that it wasn’t in primetime.
I mean, holy shit at that point where he fell down, got back up and ran over hit a winner down the line. Kid is unbelievably athletic and has no quit.
Starting Ashe at 11am and running straight through without having to clear out for day/night session yesterday would give you something like this: 11am start: Sabalenka/Pliskova (1:22)- 12:22 Approx. 1pm: Tiafoe/Rublev (2:36)- 3:36 Approx 4pm: SwiatekPegula (1:53)- 5:53 Approx 6:30: Alcaraz/Sinner (5:15)- 11:45. If you started the night session at 6pm, you'd push that by 2 hours so last night you're still going to 1:45am. I won't argue that tennis is a tough sport to follow for new fans but the issue isn't scheduling as much as men's grand slam matches are 3/5. If you want to end things earlier realistically, you need the matches to just not be 5 hours. No other sport in this country goes that long. And like it or not, the 7pm start gives the US Open a LOT of prime time TV ratings. It can run late of course but there's more to gain with a 7PM start from a viewership standpoint than just having it run straight from 11am. Only other solution is a curfew, which is very anti-NYC. It's just what the US Open can mean. There's still PLENTY of good tennis to watch during normal waking hours.
Finishing at 1145 pm or 1:45 am is a better option than what they did last night. And if they’re concerned about the mens matches being 4/5 hours, then they need to play them first for the night session and/or put the women on simultaneously on Armstrong. It’s a joke and bad for the sport that one of the best matches of the year finished at 3 am local time with a near empty stadium and no one watching on tv.
The scheduling also could’ve gone much worse. Swiatek/Pegula nearly went to a third set, which would’ve pushed the mens match back another 45 min to an hour. Fact is that current scheduling means that for any mens match last on Ashe, they’re starting at like 9:30 if lucky or 10/11 if unlucky. And if they play a 3-5 hour match, they’ll end somewhere between 12:30 and 4 am. That’s dumb as hell. And even dumber to put the men on last 3 nights in a row, including for all quarterfinal matches.
This comes across as a sport issue. Not a scheduling issue. You still need to account for expectations of the actual ticket sales and moving a #1 seed on Womens side to Armstrong or whatever just would not be acceptable solution.
Posted last night, I’ve never seen Iga look so bad. Pegula was a complete shit show and still in the match. It was a brutal watch, ties in to the night session and finishing at 3AM topic. Regardless, I literally placed 4 bets on variations for Sabalenka to win today after seeing that. I know she has her issues as well but I’m along for the ride. Garcia as well, riding the hot hand, she’s playing now like Iga was at the beginning of the year.
Don't both of those tournaments cut them off at certain times? The French didn't even have lights until recently. But in either case, different sports cultures. American sports (especially New York City of all places) aren't as into "sorry we'll come back tomorrow". The only sport that does that is what? golf? People here, specifically in attendance, aren't interested or accepting of being asked to leave before the event is over. There was still nonstop tennis available to fans since noon on main TV yesterday and you can't predict when the "best match ever" will happen to make sure it's on the right TV schedule. Same for any PAC12 games, same for LA Angels baseball games for east coast. TV can't always cater 100% to "growing the game" based on all of the other factors. Just reality.
Yeah curfews. I understand that will never change based on the locations of both venues, surrounded by high residency, re. Paris and London. NY does not have that problem, for people who have never been, it's right next door to where the Mets play, not much around there. That will never change, they just need to adjust scheduling.
Other than eliminating day/night sessions (no) what is an actual solution? An hour earlier? Ok...last night still ends at 1:45am. This isn't just solving for an hour or so. Only other solution is less matches a day and extending the event potentially which is also highly unrealistic.
I can’t recall the last time a significant French or Wimbledon match had to be completed the next day. Meanwhile, the last 3 nights the US had matches going past 1 am. So it’s odd that French/Wimbledon can schedule in a way that largely finishes all matches at a decent time while the US can’t. 2 of the mens QFs were Tuesday. I just find it hard to believe there’s no solution besides what happened the last 3 days. This isn’t a sinner/Alcaraz complaint either. Monday-Wednesday Alcaraz and Kyrgios (2 of the biggest stars remaining) played important matches that no one watched—in person or on tv. That’s a problem.
I don't know how Wimbledon does it but the French just added night sessions like what? last year? And it's just one match. So in the US Open's case, that would be a 3-match day session and 1-match night session which sounds ok until you get into who and how you're showing. I think local time that night session in Roland Garros starts at 9pm - which means last night's match ends at 2:15am local time. Obviously not as big of a deal in the eastern time zone. With only one night match, serena would have been the only night sessions this year for as long as she stayed in play. I like the equitable scheduling of day/night with men and women and really the 1am has been the exception. But still- uniquely NYC. I see what you're saying but there are necessary differences. I think the larger point is if you want to cater to new fans being able to see as many great matches as possible and new players and all that, then men need to move to 2/3. For Sinner and Alcatraz that's still 3 hours of tennis - the length of a normal sporting event.
It’s not about catering to new fans. It’s about catering to ANY fans, on tv or in person. Important R16/quarterfinal matches involving the biggest stars left in the tourney shouldn’t be starting at like 9:30/10 pm local time, which basically guarantees low in-person attendance and low TV ratings in the east and central time zones because any normal match is 3-4 hours. I don’t think they should go to best 2 of 3 either. But I do think they have to find a way to make the R16/QF matches more accessible in person and on tv. Maybe it’s only switching the schedule for 2 rounds, but something needs to change.
I just don't like making extreme changes for extreme occurrences (well, that aren't life threatening or harmful to people). Most nights are fine. They end late but at reasonable times for west coast too. And keeping in mind there are like 12 hours of tennis a day, the sport and event itself is very accessible. If they switched to a 3 day/1 night model (putting aside ticketing at the moment), that 1 night match will absolutely not go on at 7. More likely 8:30 for ball up like Monday Night Football for example. Then you just back to the issue of a 5-hour sporting event that's unpredictable. Or if your night match is a women's squash then it's over in 1 hour. Untimed sports just have challenges and while I understand last night/this morning was the best match of the tournament, that's just unpredictable to an extent and would have gone into the AM hours pretty much no matter what you did.
At what point do they stay on one court in London and Paris? I think the issue is they can sell so many tickets for Ashe.
I was going to say, the only way you solve this is making matches best of 3 sets and do away with 5. Personally I’m all for that. Think it’s crazy these guys have to play 4 hour matches. It’s great tennis 100% but it would still he great going 3 sets.
matches are suspended at Wimbledon pretty regularly for darkness. But I think they they also start a lot earlier in the day. starting the us open at 9am would be a huge waste. You’d have empty seats until lunch time.
It’s also generally only an issue the last few rounds. Week 1 stadium matches are mostly blow outs or straight setters.
So having done some quick research, Wimbledon splits their courts, which makes sense why they don't frequently hit the curfew. They split the courts between Centre Court and No. 1 court, which allows them the buffer to start matches when as soon as the first is over on each court. French has two sessions, night and day all played on Philippe-Chatrier. Looking for information related to curfew there but results are filled with COVID curfew, not normal sessions and running over.
Pretty sure the French night session is just one marquee match which is a big difference. The split courts thing would impact how ticketing/access is managed. AA Stadium every seat is reserved when sold so its treated like a traditional sporting event. Moving scheduled matches off it could create other issues but a lot of times LA Stadium is also running late. During the first week, a lot of nights LA Stadium is ending later than AA Stadium probably due to the wider seed gaps on AA with the top players.
One other thing I'm not sure how other grand slams are...the US Open right now is running several events. Singles, Doubles, Juniors, Wheelchair and each of those has several draws within it. This year added Junior WC events. In the US Open app I count 23(!) total draws. So just another thing when considering what's going on with all the other courts.
Doesn’t matter on a marquee match up. If you look back on order of play they are still fitting in the same exact matches as the US into one stadium. There’s no difference so maybe they are starting much earlier or don’t have issues with logistics in shuffling fans in and out.