Last night’s U.S. Open men’s quarterfinals ran well into the morning, setting an Open record for the latest finish. The 3:33 a.m. conclusion between America’s Ben Shelton and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz left fans and media spectators shocked as Shelton outlasted the No. 2-ranked player in the nation.
CEO and president of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy, has never held his tongue on any topic related to sports, and on the latest episode of Wake Up Barstool, he gave his unapologetic take on the late U.S. Open finish.
“What is the U.S. Open doing having matches end at 3:30 in the morning? How dumb are you? Like, what are you doing? 3:30 in he morning? And I’ve had this rant in years past; only the Blutmans are up, and it’s a huge match: it’s Alcatraz losing to Trinity Rodman’s boyfriend, Blake Sheldon. That is a huge f*cking match. I, like, I’m not even a tennis person; last night, if that’s on at a reasonable hour, which nowadays for me is like 7:30 p.m., I’m watching that, but 3:30 a.m. who is watching that besides the Blutmans?” Portnoy said.
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“Credit to all those people in the crowd; what are they on, ecstasy? Adderall? Like, what are they doing? Like, how are you awake? It’s so crazy. Who is running the U.S. Open that you’re starting matches at, like, midnight or one in the morning? What are you doing? How stupid are some people? What is the advantage in that? 3:30 in the morning? You’ve got to have rocks in your head.”
Despite having minimal knowledge of tennis, as Portnoy proclaimed, and mispronouncing Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton’s names in the process, many tennis officials agree with Portnoy’s statements and have tried to fix excessively long games and match structure at the Open.
The Athletics’ Matthew Futterman shared improvements the U.S. Open has implemented in an article titled “Why the U.S. Open’s nights leave fans in the dark as tennis goes later in the earlier rounds.”
“They cut back the day sessions on the two biggest stadiums, Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong, to two matches beginning at 11:30 a.m. instead of three starting at 11 a.m., to avoid delayed starts to the night session. It takes about an hour to turnover each stadium from day to night. If the scheduled matches go unexpectedly quickly, they can also slot in another at the last minute. They have considered moving the night session to a 6:30 p.m. start instead of 7 p.m. This year, that would have meant finishes at 1:45 a.m. instead of 2:15 a.m.”
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Eric Butorac, the tournament director, gave a statement to the Athletic and expressed his concern about the matter.
“If people have things that we can do that would be a good solve for this we want to hear them, I’m all ears and all, all in favor of looking at it.”
This deep into the tournament, it will be interesting to see whether any more changes are made or whether spectators and players will have to wait until next year.
The post ‘What are they on ecstasty?’: Dave Portnoy does not hold back on ‘stupid people’ running U.S. Open appeared first on The Comeback: Today’s Top Sports Stories & Reactions.
