Tennis Is Hot Now. The U.S. Open Is Bursting at the Seams.
The tournament is taking place as the sport is basking in a broader cultural renaissance, with record attendance numbers and fashion moments to show for it
If you want to find some consensus among tennis fans at the U.S. Open, ask them how they feel about the crowds.
Young and old. Novices and lifelong pushers. Alcaraz obsessives and Djokovic defenders. All agree that the Open’s notoriously raucous masses have swelled like a rising junior’s ego.
“A couple years ago it felt empty on a Tuesday,” said Leigh Silver, 34, of Philadelphia, wearing a worn-in tie-dye U.S. Open cap, as she waded through the crowds to make her way over to see Frenchman Arthur Fils take on America’s Learner Tien. Every year, said Silver, there are just more and more people.
It’s more than a feeling: On Monday night, Open organizers sent a proud press release noting that the tournament’s opening day set a single-day attendance record of 74,641 people. Many on the grounds grumble about the tournament overselling tickets, jamming in too many people. But the last grand slam of the year rolls in as tennis is basking in a broader cultural renaissance. The overstuffed U.S. Open is wobbling with those aftershocks.
Yes, there’s Zendaya’s “Challengers” and Netflix’s “Break Point.” World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is doing his best Zoolander impression in Gucci billboards and Naomi Osaka’s mega-bowed kit is going viral. But many fans I spoke with laid the credit, or perhaps blame, for this tennis boomlet on social media.
“It’s all over TikTok,” said Michelle Aninye, 27, of New York on the second day of the Open. She had stopped outside the mammoth Arthur Ashe arena to take a photo (using, it should be noted, a film camera, yet another Gen-Z fixation) with her friend Bolu Johnson, 28. The pair cited TikTok-happy players like Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff with boosting the sport’s cachet. “You’re seeing some of the best players be a little bit more active,” said Aninye.
It goes beyond athletes’ accounts. Dip a toe into tennis fandom and your social media feeds will quickly spiral into a deluge of not just scorelines, but videos dedicated coach-box chatter, rivalries and even (at the risk of being lecherous) player’s gym-toned bodies.
In the days leading up to the tournament, shirtless clips of top America players like Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton volleyed around the internet. The sport’s fandom has certainly evolved from just envying Roger Federer’s backhand.
“Challengers” got at least one thing right according to Nikolaj Hansson, the founder of Copenhagen-based tennis apparel brand Palmes. He was in town because his brand collaborated with Sperry on shoes, an occasion it celebrated by hosting people in a box at the Open on Monday.
The movie, Hansson said, sent the message that “tennis is a very sexy sport.”
He was not the only person to use this descriptor: “It’s sexy,” said Silver. “There’s definitely an aesthetic aspect of tennis that’s appealing with the prep outfits and following the player drama.”
There’s certainly some cosplay happening at the Open. Comic-Con has Spider-Man costumes. Tennis has nipped white skirts.
On the tournament’s second day, Janet Lee and Nathan Lian of New York, approached Arthur Ashe Stadium dressed like “Challengers” extras, he in a polo, she in a tennis skirt. “I gave him a color code, white on white,” said Lee, 26. Lian, also 26, almost followed the dictate perfectly—his shorts were more of a khaki.
They could be excused with picking a more Wimbledon-centric color scheme as Lee said her TikTok feed had been stacked with videos of influencers getting ready for that prim British slam.
“The fits are very cute,” said Lee.
That’s not to say that Lee and Lian were tennis noobs. They quickly rifled off the players they were itching to see: Alcaraz, Sinner and American top ten-er Jessica Pegula. And they’d been to the Open enough times for Lee to clock that the tournament now offered its signature vodka-based Honey Deuce cocktail on tap, shortening lines for this gulped-down $23 drink. Lee and Lian had taken advantage: each held a plastic Honey Deuce cup. (Though they, like most fans I spoke with, were only attending a single day, as tickets for the tournament have become increasingly, some say prohibitively, expensive.)
Harvey Rosen, 69, of New York, who’s been coming to the Open on and off for about 25 years, had a simple, deuces-and-aces answer for why the sport’s popularity continues to swell: The play is just darn good right now.
As his faded 2009 Open T-shirt indicated, Rosen has been a fan long enough to have seen the glory days of the big three, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. But he was thrilled by the play of Carlos Alcaraz in particular, whose rivalry with Sinner has added a new edge to the sport. As has Iga Świątek’s clay court dominance and Aryna Sabalenka’s walloping forehand. Also enticing American fans, Coco Gauff is defending her title at the Open this week and a handful of American men hover in the top 20 of the sport.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate, sidled up to a blistering match between France’s Adrian Mannarino and Belgium’s David Goffin on Thursday, his toddler son in tow. A self-described tennis fanatic, he said he’s been coming to the Open since 2006.
Over that time, he said, “we’ve seen a crescendo in fan enthusiasm and public enthusiasm about tennis because of rivalries.”
His thoughts on the crowds? “I love people,” said Ramaswamy, ever the politician.
Rosen was less enthused. The Open, he said, was “getting uncomfortably crowded,” as he skirted the crush by sitting in the shade outside Ashe, a cup of lemonade in his hand. Still, it wasn’t dimming his passion for the tournament. “It’s the best sporting event of the year,” he said. And he didn’t need TikTok to know that.