The U.S. Open on Day 3 had the kind of weather interruption that reminds everyone the tournament is bigger than one court, one schedule or one headline. Rain stopped play at Flushing Meadows, the outer courts eventually restarted, and the night session took over with the sport’s biggest names still trying to get through the evening intact. If you wanted calm, you were in the wrong place.
That is also what made the Alexander Zverev in prime-time slot so compelling. While the rain shuffled the order of play, the top seed remained one of the central figures in a day that kept pulling attention back to the same simple truth: at a Grand Slam, the schedule may wobble, but the star power does not go away. Zverev’s match sat inside a night session that felt even more significant because the day had already been disrupted.
Rain changes the mood, not the stakes
Once the suspension passed, the tournament had to rebuild itself on the fly. On the outer courts, Flavio Cobolli, Taylor Fritz, Elena Rybakina, Mirra Andreeva and Madison Keys all advanced, giving the early session plenty of movement before the spotlight shifted to Arthur Ashe. Coco Gauff then opened the night session with a straight-sets victory over Zeynep Sönmez, giving the evening card a clean start before the bigger names settled in.
That is the underrated thing about a day like this: it is chaotic, but it still produces structure. The players who handle the delays best tend to look the most serious. The ones who can keep their focus when the weather breaks the rhythm are often the ones who look most comfortable on the biggest stages. That is why the late-session work matters so much, even when everyone is grumbling about the delay.
Monfils gets his moment anyway
Gaël Monfils provided one of the day’s most emotional storylines, winning on his 40th birthday and advancing to the second round in his 18th career U.S. Open. There was a clear sense of occasion at Louis Armstrong Stadium, where the crowd’s “Happy birthday!” greeting matched the occasion and Monfils answered in kind with a simple “Woohoo”.
He is also playing what is being described as his final Grand Slam before retirement, which gives every step a little more weight than usual. That is the beauty of a day like this at Flushing Meadows: one minute you are dealing with rain delays and rearranged order of play, the next you are watching a veteran celebrate a birthday win in front of a crowd that knows it is seeing something significant.
By the time the night session settled in, the message from Day 3 was pretty clear. The conditions were messy, the schedule was broken up, and the tournament had already delivered a mix of momentum shifts and emotional moments. But the big names were still there, the stadiums were still full, and Alexander Zverev remained right where he was supposed to be: in the prime-time frame, under pressure, with the attention that comes with it.
