U.S. Open adds Sunday start to become third Grand Slam tournament with 15-day main draw

The U.S. Open will start on a Sunday in 2025, leaving Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam tournament with a Monday start. Matches in the singles main draw will begin Sunday August 24 at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., with 15 days of play running through September 7. First-round matches will run over three days, from Sunday to Tuesday, with the tournament starting on a weekend for the first time in the Open Era. The Australian Open moved to a 15-day main draw for 2024 in a bid to reduce the risk of late-night matches at Melbourne Park. Last year’s U.S. Open featured the latest start to a match in tournament history, when Aryna Sabalenka and Ekaterina Alexandrova began their third-round match eight minutes past midnight. It also featured the latest finish to a women’s match in tournament history, with Zheng Qinwen and Donna Vekic’s fourth-round encounter finishing at 2:15 a.m. The tournament in 2024 introduced a Late Finishing Match Policy designed to mitigate the impact of late-night tennis on players, but it was not used for either of those matches. It estimates that adding an extra day will allow 70,000 extra spectators to visit the tournament. The change leaves Wimbledon as both the only major without a Sunday start and the only major without its qualifying tournament hosted on site. The French Open moved to a 15-day main draw in 2006.