THE US OPEN, TENNIS

The US Open is the last of the four major championships of tennis: two weeks on hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, from the end of August into September, with a day session and a night session on every date, the middle weekend falling on the Labor Day holiday; in 2026 the women’s final was on the second Saturday and the men’s on the Sunday. At its centre is Arthur Ashe Stadium, with 23,771 seats, the largest tennis stadium in the world.

The ground was once the Corona Ash Dumps, the valley of ashes of The Great Gatsby. Billie Jean King’s words are on a plaque at the players’ entrance: “Pressure is a privilege.”

Newport

It began in August 1881 on the grass of the Newport Casino in Rhode Island, as the U.S. National Championships, with men’s singles and doubles. The Casino had been built for James Gordon Bennett Jr. to designs by McKim, Mead & White, their first major commission, and is now the home of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Richard Sears won the first title and the six after it. The women first played for theirs in 1887, at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, and Ellen Hansell won it at seventeen.

On 5 February 1915, by a vote of 128 to 119, the men’s singles left Newport for the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, in Queens, which built a horseshoe stadium for fourteen thousand in 1923 and held the championships sixty times. The Open Era came in 1968, and Arthur Ashe won the first men’s singles of it. In 1973 it became the first major to pay men and women the same, $25,000 each to Newcombe and Court. In 1975 the grass gave way to clay, and floodlights brought play at night.

The tiebreak belongs to Newport too. James Van Alen invented it and first tried it in 1965, at his professional tournament at the Casino, and in 1970 the US Open became the first major to use it, for every set that reached six games all, in singles and in doubles. From 1970 to 2018 it was the only major to play a tiebreak in the final set. The others have since followed, and since 2022 all four settle a final set at six all with a tiebreak of ten points.

In 1978 it moved three miles north to the new National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, and onto hard courts; Jimmy Connors is the only player to have won it on grass, clay and hard. Arthur Ashe Stadium opened on 25 August 1997, on the site of the United States Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair, and Whitney Houston sang “One Moment in Time”. After rain put off the men’s final five years running, from 2008 to 2012, it was given a roof, finished in 2016. It is the only major not stopped by either World War or by the pandemic of 2020.

The Fortnight

Fan Week comes first; in 2026 it brought the qualifying, the mixed doubles and Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, and the grounds were free to enter. The main draw then runs for two weeks. Every date has a day session, mostly from eleven in the morning, and a night session, mostly from seven in the evening, each with its own ticket. Of the night, one independent guide is plain: “There is no guaranteed finishing time.”

Every court is lit, and the courts have been painted US Open Blue since 2005. Beside Ashe stand Louis Armstrong Stadium, with 14,061 seats, the Grandstand, with 8,125, and Court 17, known as the Pit, with 2,800. The US Open was the first major to use a shot clock, in 2018, and video review, in 2023.

The drink of the fortnight is the Honey Deuce, created by the restaurateur Nick Mautone: vodka, lemonade and raspberry liqueur, with balls of honeydew melon “cut to resemble green tennis balls”, in a cup that carries the names of past champions. It cost $23 in 2026, and 738,459 were sold the year before.

The 146th edition ran from the last days of August to Sunday 13 September 2026. Ben Shelton beat Carlos Alcaraz in a fifth-set tiebreak in the quarter-finals, finishing at 3.33 in the morning, and before his semi-final against Tiafoe a giant flag was unfurled on Ashe for the twenty-fifth anniversary of 11 September. Elena Rybakina beat Aryna Sabalenka, the defending champion, for her first US Open and her third major, and was handed the trophy by Maria Sharapova, twenty years after Sharapova’s own. On the Sunday Alexander Zverev beat Shelton in four sets, the first German to win the men’s title since 1989.

What to Know

It runs for two weeks from the last days of August into September, with Fan Week in the days before. The USTA has not announced the dates for 2027.

Day and night sessions are sold separately. Grounds passes are the cheapest, and often fall in price as the tournament goes on; the first week costs less than the second. The suites in Ashe are on two dedicated suite levels, for twenty-two to thirty-five guests, with an attendant, food and drink, an indoor lounge and an outdoor balcony, parking and a Premier entrance; the price is on enquiry.

The Court has found no published code for spectators. The Court wears smart casual in its own reading of it: a jacket without a tie, proper trousers and shoes, and no logos.

The 7 train runs from Grand Central to Mets-Willets Point, steps from the grounds, and the Long Island Rail Road’s Port Washington Branch from Penn Station or Grand Central Madison to the same stop. Extra 7 trains run after the last match on Ashe. Rideshare and black cars drop at the New York Hall of Science, with a shuttle to the Champions Entry; parking is limited. IHG calls itself the tournament’s official hotel sponsor. Stay in Manhattan, by Grand Central or Penn Station.

The mistake is to think a day ticket carries into the night. Each session needs its own ticket.

The Court

The US Open is not the Court’s own. Seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium for the night sessions and the finals, or a suite on its suite levels, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in Manhattan, and the table afterward.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.