Craig Tiley has responded to complaints about scheduling at the US Open this year.
Tiley is in his first year as the CEO of the USTA, having left his role as the Australian Open tournament director after 20 years earlier this year.
In his first year at the US Open, the tournament has received some complaints due to scheduling, with a number of matches finishing in the early hours of the morning.
This includes Ben Shelton’s win over Carlos Alcaraz concluding at 3:33am, the latest ever finish at the US Open, and Tiley has now responded to these complaints.
Craig Tiley confirms that the US Open will stick with night sessions
Tiley spoke in an interview with Sky Sports, where former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli asked him about the late finishes.
Despite the complaints the tournament has received, Tiley was strong in his defence of the US Open’s scheduling.
“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,” said Tiley.
“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.”
Is it time to end best-of-five-set matches in tennis?
How would you solve the issue of tennis matches lasting too long?
One of the reasons for the late finishes at the US Open is the night sessions on both the Arthur Ashe Stadium and the Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Currently there are two day matches and two night matches on these courts, and Tiley has insisted that is going to remain next year.
“We really like the two days and two nights,” added Tiley. “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.”
Craig Tiley states what he wants to change at the US Open
While Tiley does not appear to be planning to make any changes to the scheduling at the US Open, he does want to make some alterations to the site.
With just one year under his belt as tournament director, Tiley spoke about the changes he would like to make to cater to both fans and players.
“I think if you look at the site, we have great tennis, we have a great precinct, it’s in New York, you know there’s so many good things going about it,” explained the South African. “When you look at the fan, we’ve become really customer centric, customer focused.
“We’ll get to maniacal personalisation. So every fan that comes in will have a personal experience. So we’ll need more shade, we’ll need more space, we need to have more screens up.
“I think we’ll evolve as an event that continues to become very fan friendly and at the same time be a player first event, be very player friendly. We are well on that journey already, the team have done a great job so far and we’ll keep building on it.”
Who will win the women’s US Open final?
Tiley has nearly completed his first US Open as tournament director, with just three days of the 2026 tournament remaining.
The women’s singles final will be between Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, while the men’s final is yet to be confirmed.
Add to Preferred Sources 