NEW YORK -- It's just after 1:30 a.m., and the person sitting next to me is enjoying a glass of red wine.
There's nothing unusual about this scene. The life of a sportswriter lends itself to grabbing a late-night bite at a bar or hotel lobby after a long event just before last call.
The only difference is I'm still at a match that might be over in 20 minutes or two hours, depending on what Sam Querrey and Kevin Anderson do in this seemingly never-ending fourth set.
That's the beauty of the night session at the US Open. You just never know.
But if you're lucky enough to be among the few hundred people sticking around a Tuesday-night match that bleeds into Wednesday morning, it's an experience unlike anything else in sports.
When the clocks at Arthur Ashe Stadium hit midnight, the rules that normally govern the crown jewel of the USTA Billie Jean National Tennis Center are thrown out the window as ushers and vendors simply want to go home. Fans sitting in the top deck of the stadium are able to freely move down to empty front-row seats. Vendors making drinks are more generous with their pours as they look at their watches, while ushers who are nearly falling asleep generally don't mind if fans come and go during play.
It makes for a quaint, yet rowdy, crowd that the chair umpire must thanklessly try to rein in like a substitute teacher dealing with a classroom of adolescents after recess.
As Querrey and Anderson engaged in a back-and-forth quarterfinals match that saw three tiebreaks, the record for the latest tennis match at the US Open (2:26 a.m.) was within their grasp. It was 1:49 a.m. and Querrey had the advantage in a fourth-set tiebreaker.
If he was able to win and push Anderson to five sets, there's no doubt that record would have been shattered, but Anderson was able to rally and advance to the semifinals, finishing the match at 1:51 a.m. As it was, Querrey and Anderson didn't even have the latest match of the tournament this year. Alexander Zverev defeated Darian King on the first day of the US Open last week in a match that ended at 2:04 a.m.
While the ability to watch a live sporting event in-person past 2 a.m. is nirvana for an insomniac like me, it does seem odd to be playing meaningful tennis matches in a nearly empty stadium in the wee hours of the morning.
Most fans who fill the stadium for the first match of the night session head home before midnight because they have work or school in the morning, leaving two world-class players competing in a world-class tournament at a world-class stadium in front of a few hundred people.
It's not ideal, but it is one of the charms of the US Open, and most of the players involved are used to it by now.
"It's fun," Querrey said at his postmatch press conference after 2:30 a.m. "I mean, it's so late. I know it's tough for people to stay, but the people that stayed, they were in it, they were loud; they were fun to play in front of. You can't expect a stadium to be full at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday."
Filling any stadium on any day of the week at 2 a.m. is going to be hard, but there is something unforgettable about the experience for the fans who stick around, although the players aren't usually as nostalgic about the late-night match.
"There are a handful of times during the year when you do play a match that late where the night session goes late or you have a rain delay," Querrey said. "I think all tennis players are used to it, and when you're doing a physical sport, you don't get tired -- 2 a.m. feels the same as 9 p.m. You can't really tell the difference when you're out there."
But there is a big difference for the fans who moved from the cheap seats to the front row. That is an experience they weren't likely to forget as they headed home Wednesday from a match they started watching Tuesday.