Arthur Ashe Stadium has witnessed countless iconic late-night epics, but what unfolded in the early hours of Wednesday morning redefined tennis endurance. At 3:33 a.m. local time , that's right, 3:33 a.m., not p.m. - after 4 hours and 28 minutes of relentless, high-octane tennis, Ben Shelton closed out the defining win of his career, dethroning defending champion and seven-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz: 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(7) Finishing as the latest-ever match in US Open history, Shelton capped off the marathon fifth-set super-tiebreaker by rocketing a signature 146-mph ace past Alcaraz. With that single swing, the 23-year-old American snapped Alcaraz’s 18-match major winning streak, secured his first-ever triumph over a top-3 opponent, and sent the Flushing Meadows draw into absolute frenzy. The Breakdown: How Shelton Pulled Off the Upset Due to multiple prior five-setters on Ashe—including Frances Tiafoe’s thrilling comeback over Alex Michelsen—...
The 2026 US Open began on August 30 at Flushing Meadows in New York and runs through September 13. Two days of first-round play are now complete, which is usually enough to see the shape of a tournament even if it tells you very little about who lifts the trophy. The US Open is the loudest of the four majors, and that is the point. Night sessions at Arthur Ashe Stadium run past midnight, the crowd is allowed to behave in ways Wimbledon would never tolerate, and planes out of LaGuardia pass overhead during rallies. Anyone who has sat in the upper deck in Queens on a humid September evening knows the tournament is as much an event as a sporting competition. The Defending Champion Clears His First Test Carlos Alcaraz, the top seed and last year's champion, beat Roman Safiullin 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. A straight-sets win looks emphatic on paper, but the identical scoreline in all three sets is worth noting. He conceded four games each time. This reads less like a demolition and more like...