Many U.S. tennis fans enjoyed a thrilling late-night quarterfinal between Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz last night. Unfortunately, many more were unable to stay up late enough to watch the whole thing.
The match started late and ended well after last call, drawing tons of complaints from diehard fans who wanted to watch the whole thing without having to sacrifice their good night’s rest. In response, the US Open’s official X account shared a “work excuse letter” for fans to use this morning.
“Dear __, Please excuse __ from work on Wednesday, 9/9/2026. We understand how important showing up is, but sometimes you have to make time for things you’re passionate about. Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton put on an absolute stellar performance during their US Open quarterfinal, and __ was a fully committed fan who was completely locked in from start to finish. We appreciate your understanding and hope you can respect the commitment to the sport. Thank you,” the letter said.
Not good enough…
As cute as the message was, fans were more interested in either an apology or an explanation than an excuse letter and gave the organization a piece of their minds in the comments:
“how about you schedule the match at a reasonable time instead? outrageously stupid on your part,” one user on X remarked.
“I was thinking an apology letter from US Open Tennis was more what we would be seeing today,” wrote another.
“You should be ashamed, this is incompetence at the highest level… Tone deaf organizers, then you will try to mutilate the sport with stupid changes to “get to the young people”… This absurd schedules help no one, not the fans nor the athletes. Most people will not loose sleep due to your mediocre organization,” a third wrote angrily.
“Shame on you guys for your absurd scheduling. Do better.”
Reuters/Geoff Burke TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY.
The matches started late because the preceding matches lasted extra-long. The Tiafoe-Michelsen match went 4 hours and 39 minutes, and that was before three straight women’s quarterfinal matches.
By the time Shelton and Alcaraz were ready, it was already past 11 p.m. ET and that five-set thriller didn’t end until 3:40 in the morning.
