US Tennis Association CEO Craig Tiley insists New York’s night session will not change as women’s top seed Aryna Sabalenka will meet new world No.1 Elena Rybakina in the US Open final.
Sabalenka, who is looking to become the first to complete a three-peat at Flushing Meadows’ Arthur Ashe Stadium since Serena Williams pulled off a hat-trick in 2012, 2013 and 2014, booked a rematch of the Australian Open final by brushing aside American third Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-7 in the first of the women’s semi-finals.
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Rybakina, who took Sabalenka’s world No.1 mantle by reaching the final four, then spoiled brought the host nation’s charge in the women’s to an end as she defeated Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in a little more than two hours in the second match of the night session in New York.
Ryabkina clinched victory shortly after 11pm local time, and after Ben Shelton knocked out defending men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz in five sets in the latest finish in US Open history at 3.33am local time, late finishes have been the talk of the tennis world.
It is a subject Tiley is well versed in, having previously been in charge of the Australian Open – four of the top five latest finishes in tennis history have been at Melbourne Park.
Wimbledon has an 11pm curfew, while Roland Garros only includes one match in its evening session of Court Philippe-Chatrier to prevent finishing matches in the early hours of the morning.
While both the Australian and US Opens have two night matches on their respective centre courts.
Shelton and Alcaraz did not start their near four-and-a-half hour epic until just after 11pm on Tuesday night after Frances Tiafoe defeated fellow American Alex Michelsen in five sets and four hours and 39 minutes earlier in the day.
While Sabalenka and Pegula’s quarter-final wins that day went to a deciding third set and lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours each.
Tiley believes it is simply the nature of the sport and that the schedule of two night matches will not be changing under his watch.
“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,” Tiley told Sky Sports.
“You can’t control the length of the match. What’s really interesting is in the last 10 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 10 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 3.30am in the morning, although the rest of the world in the daytime saw a pretty amazing match.”
Tiley added: “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.”
Meanwhile, Sabalenka – who beat Pegula en route to US Open wins in 2024 and 2025 – punched her ticket to Saturday’s final.
The 28-year-old Belarusian, bidding to join Chris Evert and Serena Williams as the only women to win three straight US Open titles, swatted aside Pegula with a dominant service game and a fearsome array of powerful groundstrokes.
On the evidence of her semi-final win, Sabalenka will head into the final bristling with confidence after producing her best performance of the tournament to snuff out Pegula’s dream of a first ever Grand Slam title.
Pegula, who posted a dominant victory over Sabalenka on grass in Berlin this year as the Belarusian struggled through the summer, thought it was the best match Sabalenka had played all year.
“I thought her level was insanely high,” Pegula said. “Maybe she felt a little bit off at the beginning, but I feel like we were both playing well, serving well … she played insane. She played a super high level.”
Sabalenka, who sent down seven aces and 29 winners, said she was “desperate” for the win.
“I wanted it so badly,” she said. “I lost a tough match on grass against Jess, and I wasn’t really performing well in the middle part of the season.
“So it kind of feels for me, talking about Grand Slams, like a last push of the season. I wanted it badly to go to the finals, and, of course, I want to go all the way.
“The mentality was just I’m ready. I’m ready for whatever it’s going to take to get the win.”
Both players gave away little in the first set, serving superbly to keep the match on serve until the 12th game, with Sabalenka leading 6-5.
It was Pegula who would blink first, finding herself down 0-40 after a barrage of hefty groundstrokes from Sabalenka, who clinched the set when Pegula duffed a return into the net.
Sabalenka kept the momentum rolling in the second set, attacking Pegula’s suspect second serve and grabbing the crucial break for a 3-1 lead when she lasered a forehand into the corner.
The rest of the set went with serve until the eighth game, when Pegula fired long to give up a match point and Sabalenka sealed victory with another ferocious forehand.
In Saturday’s final, Rybakina will try to deal another blow to Sabalenka, having knocked her out of the number one world ranking just by reaching the semi-finals.
“I feel like I definitely need to step my game up, serve much better than today and stay aggressive,” Rybakina said of her looming clash with Sabalenka.
Gauff’s bid to return to the final for the first time since she defeated Sabalenka for the 2023 title had got off to a smooth start, with the American seizing the initiative in the opening set with a break to go 4-2 up.
She held to love to take a 5-2 lead and then held in the ninth game to take a one set lead.
But Rybakina hit back with an early break of serve in the second set for a 3-1 lead and held to go 4-1 up.
Gauff responded superbly to claw her way back into contention with a break to make it 4-3 before holding to square it a 4-4.
Yet she was unable to make the most of her fightback and double-faulted in the 10th game to hand two set points to Rybakina at 15-40. Rybakina pounced on that chance to take the match to a third set.
The decisive set followed a similar pattern.
Gauff conceded a break to trail 5-3 and leave Rybakina serving for the match. But the American broke back immediately to make it 5-4 to get it back on serve. Again though Gauff was unable to capitalise, and a deft volley from Rybakina left her with two match points at 15-40, before Gauff then hit a wide open smash long to hand her opponent victory.
“It was such a cool third set — I feel like I was a little bit lucky on her serve,” Rybakina said. “A couple of deep returns, one mistake from her, it went quickly my way…it was a real battle.”