Aryna Sabalenka was back on court against Elise Mertens for their fourth-round clash on Sunday. It was her first match since breaking the record for the latest start time in US Open history.

In round three, Sabalenka and Ekaterina Alexandrova started their match at 12.08am.

And the world No. 2 gave an update on her late-night victory after beating Mertens at a normal time.

“That was really late start. Yeah. I don’t know. You know, when you play in really deep stages of the tournaments, you don’t care about timing,” she laughed.

“I was, like, okay, let’s say it’s morning practice if I’m, like, in Europe. Like, whatever, I don’t care. I just want to win and go home. Then I got back at 3am, probably fall asleep at 4, and I was completely off. I just fall asleep, which usually never happen like that, but I was able to get, like, eight hours of sleep, so I was okay.”