diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index 612dbfed9d4..5f43a7ba41c 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -153,6 +153,9 @@ Optimizations
 * LUCENE-5145: All Appending*Buffer now support bulk get.
   (Boaz Leskes via Adrien Grand)
 
+* LUCENE-5140: Fixed a performance regression of span queries caused by
+  LUCENE-4946. (Alan Woodward, Adrien Grand)
+
 Documentation
 
 * LUCENE-4894: remove facet userguide as it was outdated. Partially absorbed into
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/spans/NearSpansOrdered.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/spans/NearSpansOrdered.java
index 1ee44a566af..95451f4586b 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/spans/NearSpansOrdered.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/spans/NearSpansOrdered.java
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ import org.apache.lucene.index.Term;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.TermContext;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.ArrayUtil;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.Bits;
+import org.apache.lucene.util.InPlaceMergeSorter;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
@@ -72,13 +73,19 @@ public class NearSpansOrdered extends Spans {
   private List<byte[]> matchPayload;
 
   private final Spans[] subSpansByDoc;
-  private final Comparator<Spans> spanDocComparator = new Comparator<Spans>() {
+  // Even though the array is probably almost sorted, InPlaceMergeSorter will likely
+  // perform better since it has a lower overhead than TimSorter for small arrays
+  private final InPlaceMergeSorter sorter = new InPlaceMergeSorter() {
     @Override
-    public int compare(Spans o1, Spans o2) {
-      return o1.doc() - o2.doc();
+    protected void swap(int i, int j) {
+      ArrayUtil.swap(subSpansByDoc, i, j);
+    }
+    @Override
+    protected int compare(int i, int j) {
+      return subSpansByDoc[i].doc() - subSpansByDoc[j].doc();
     }
   };
-  
+
   private SpanNearQuery query;
   private boolean collectPayloads = true;
   
@@ -204,7 +211,7 @@ public class NearSpansOrdered extends Spans {
 
   /** Advance the subSpans to the same document */
   private boolean toSameDoc() throws IOException {
-    ArrayUtil.timSort(subSpansByDoc, spanDocComparator);
+    sorter.sort(0, subSpansByDoc.length);
     int firstIndex = 0;
     int maxDoc = subSpansByDoc[subSpansByDoc.length - 1].doc();
     while (subSpansByDoc[firstIndex].doc() != maxDoc) {