09/09/26 11:49:00
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09/09 11:48 CDT Late nights at the US Open add a new wild wrinkle with 3:33
a.m. finish to Shelton-Alcaraz thriller
Late nights at the US Open add a new wild wrinkle with 3:33 a.m. finish to
Shelton-Alcaraz thriller
NEW YORK (AP) --- The late-night action at the U.S. Open has now reached an
extreme.
Ben Shelton's five-set thriller to beat reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz in the
quarterfinals ended at 3:33 a.m. Wednesday, leaving few people awake to see the
4 1/2-hour marathon reach its finale on one of the sport's biggest stages. That
only added to the list of early-morning finishes that had already stirred
frustration and concerns about how organizers were managing the schedule at the
Grand Slam event with numerous matches straying well past night-owl hours.
Players have long loved the electricity of playing night matches under the
lights in the nation's biggest city. But the tournament had already set a
record with three post-2 a.m. finishes over the first six days, as well as
having two other matches go past 1 a.m.
That had included Venus Williams being subjected to the latest start in U.S.
Open history at 12:13 a.m., after it took 4 hours, 36 minutes for Novak
Djokovic to get knocked out in the first round.
"It's not ideal," Williams said at the time.
Shelton himself had a four-set second-round win against Denis Shapovalov that
ended at 2:07 a.m.
Then came Tuesday night --- well, Wednesday morning.
Shelton, a 23-year-old from Atlanta seeded No. 8, earned a massive win in his
young career to reach his third major semifinal by taking down the
second-seeded Alcaraz 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7). He closed the
fifth-set tiebreak with a 146-mph ace and ended the reigning champion's
18-match winning streak in Grand Slam tournaments.
It ended with Arthur Ashe Stadium perhaps one-third full at the finish.
This one set up an all-American semifinal matchup with 11th-seeded Frances
Tiafoe, with the U.S. guaranteed to have a representative in Sunday's final as
it seeks its first major men's title since Andy Roddick won at Flushing Meadows
in 2003.
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