Cincinnati Open
Rebuilt from a parking lot into a park, and now level with Indian Wells. The friendliest big tournament in American tennis.
The Vibe
First things first, and I will keep saying it until it sticks: the Cincinnati Open is not in Cincinnati. It's in Mason, Ohio, about thirty minutes northeast of downtown, sitting directly across the road from an amusement park. More on that later, because it matters more than you'd think.
Second thing, and it shapes this whole guide. If you came here before 2025, you have not been to this tournament. I visited in 2024 for qualifying and loved it. I described it back then as a "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" version of the US Open, a smaller and better laid out take on New York's slam, and I meant that as a compliment. Then they closed the gates on the 2024 final and started knocking things down.
Here is the only way I know how to describe what happened next. You know that feeling when you run into someone from high school and they're hot now? They weren't hot in high school. They were nice. They were fine. And now they've got money and a jawline and you can't stop staring. That is this tournament. They had eleven months to turn it around and they hit it out of the park.
Everything below comes from a full week I spent on the new grounds in 2025, the first year they were open, plus what's changed for 2026 where I know it.
Nick and I had unofficially treated Indian Wells as the best 1000-level event in the country for years. After that week I'd put Cincinnati level with it, and depending on what Indian Wells does next, this might edge ahead. I don't say that as a knock on anyone. I say it because a lot of people can't get to the coasts, and it's genuinely good that there's a tournament of this caliber sitting in the middle of the country. The players love coming here, which means the top of the game shows up as long as they're healthy, which means kids in Ohio get to watch the best in the world in person. That's how you grow a sport.
What surprised me most wasn't the scale, though. It was the temperament. This is the friendliest tournament I've been to. The ball crew are the sweetest, chattiest people on site and they'd stop me every day to ask what on earth I was doing lugging what felt like seventeen cameras around. In 2025 the grounds were packed almost every single day, including a sold-out day session on a Monday, and it still never felt like a place you'd get tired of.
One honest note before we go further, because I'm not here to sell you anything. Not everything is perfect. There are a couple of things they got wrong, and I'll point at them as we go.
Getting There
You are going to Mason, and Mason is built for cars. Fight it and you'll have a worse day.
Drive, our pick
Free public parking comes with every ticket and shuttles run from the lots to the gates. That is rare in tennis and it removes the most annoying part of most tournament days. Rent the car. It's the difference between staying for one more match and worrying about how you're getting back at eleven at night.
Downtown or close to the grounds?
Staying downtown gives you Cincinnati proper in the evenings and a half-hour commute each way. Staying out near the venue cuts the commute to nothing and hands you very little to do after dark. Pick based on whether you want a tennis trip or a city trip with tennis in it.
Kings Island is right there
The amusement park next door is close enough that the fireworks go off mid evening session and everyone just carries on. Here's my favourite thing I learned all week: the ball crew hold the umbrellas on changeovers, so they hear everything, and they told me that when a doubles team is going down a set and a break, the players start planning tomorrow's trip to Kings Island. The losers go to the water park.
Ana's tip: Get somewhere with a kitchen. I stay in an Airbnb over a hotel at this tournament specifically so I can make my own coffee and breakfast before I go in. Days here start early and end late, and a $7 cup of drip on site gets old fast.
Tickets
This one's a happy section, because the thing I complained about last year has been fixed.
When I was there in 2025 there was no grounds pass. You bought a day session or a night session with a reserved seat at Center Court or Grandstand, and everything else on site was a free-for-all. It worked, but it meant the cheapest way in was still a stadium seat, and I said on camera that week that I wished they'd just sell a grounds pass.
For 2026 they do. Grounds passes start around $60 and get you 29 of the 31 courts, everything except Center Court and Grandstand, plus all the food, the bars and the fan areas. If you've listened to Ground Pass for five minutes you know this is the ticket we always tell you to buy.
Grandstand ticket
A reserved seat in the second stadium, plus the run of everything else except Center Court.
Center Court ticket
The only ticket that gets you everywhere, Grandstand included. So the real question isn't which court you want, it's whether you need a guaranteed seat for the marquee match that day.
Ana's ticket tip: In the first week, you don't. There are four show courts now and the field is enormous, so the stars physically cannot all fit on Center. In 2025 I watched Madison Keys save match points on Grandstand. A grounds pass in week one buys you more tennis, more players and more of the site than a Center Court seat you sit in all day. Save Center for one day in week two, when the draw narrows and everyone big ends up in the same place.
One thing to know before you buy: day session tickets don't work after 5pm and night session tickets don't work before it. A full day is two tickets.
Show Courts
There are four now, which is a direct result of the expanded draw. More big names means more matches that deserve a proper stadium.
Center Court
The biggest, the priciest, and where you'll find Alcaraz, Sinner, Swiatek and Sabalenka. It isn't a clean oval though. One end has hospitality suites cut into it, which creates partial-view seats, so look at the map properly before you pick. A blocked view here is a long day.
Grandstand
Unchanged from before the rebuild apart from an external facelift so good I didn't recognise it and assumed it was new. Reserved seats plus general admission up top in the second ring. If a big name is scheduled here and you're going in on GA, come early, because it will pack out.
The walkway, our favourite bit
Center Court and Grandstand are physically connected by a walkway, so you can step from one to the other in seconds. I expected noise bleed and there's almost none, other than the odd roar from a big moment next door, which honestly adds to it. I've not seen it anywhere else.
Champions Court, my favourite on site
The new one, sunken, gorgeous, much smaller than the other three, and all unassigned seating so you just walk in and sit down. Between the bowl shape and the planting around it, this is the prettiest place to watch tennis on the grounds. I decided that on day one in 2025 and never changed my mind.
Stadium 3, and the one to know about
Here's the flaw. Stadium 3 has no baseline seating. None. There's a walkway along one baseline and almost every seat runs down the sides. Baseline seats are the best in the house because that's where you see the whole court, where the ball is going and how it's moving. Take that away and you've taken away the reason to sit there.
Outer Courts
This is the part of any tournament we care most about, and Cincinnati is very good at it. I overheard a fan explaining to their friend why they'd spent the whole day out here instead of in the stadium: you can actually see the players. That's the entire argument, said better than I've ever said it.
Court 10, our pick
Also sunken, and the biggest of the outer courts. You're not on top of the players exactly, you're just closer to them, and it changes the texture of a match completely. In 2025 I watched Clervie Ngounoue take Elise Mertens to three sets out here days after her first tour-level win, with a real crowd behind her. That's exactly the match you come to an outer court for.
The baseline catch
Court 10 is the only outer court with baseline seating. Court 4 doesn't have it. Courts 5 through 9, which run in an identical row, don't either. Everything else is sides only. If you want that view, Court 10 is your one shot.
Room to breathe
At the US Open some outer courts sit back to back with nothing between them, so you rely on the crowd to block your view of the other match. Here there's always a division, sometimes a fence, sometimes a hedge. The US Open still wins on outer court baseline seating. Cincinnati wins on space.
Practice Courts
Massively improved, and the second thing they haven't quite got right.
Know first that there are two kinds. A dedicated practice area that will never host matches, and a set on the other side of the campus that double as match courts and sometimes are. If you're hunting a specific player, both are in play, and the schedule goes up daily.
Back in 2024, before the rebuild, this was rough. Very few dedicated areas, everything at eye level with no elevation, so if you were short and stuck at the back you saw nothing. That year Coco Gauff came here straight from an early loss in Toronto and took the furthest court down the row because she wanted some privacy, and fans walked around the outside of the grounds to peer at her through a wire fence. There was nowhere else for them to go.
Since the renovation there's identical seating on both sides, so your view is roughly the same wherever a player ends up, plus elevated seating on the side and at the end. In 2025 I watched Gauff and Jasmine Paolini practice with proper crowds in proper seats. Before that, you stood at a fence. Fun for ten minutes, and then not.
Ana's tip: Don't sit in the front row of the elevated seating. From rows one, two and three you cannot see the court, only just about the far baseline. It isn't until the fourth row that you get both baselines, and above that you're better off standing. I climbed up expecting the best view in the house and got the worst one.
One more thing the players noticed before fans did. At most Slams and 1000s there aren't enough practice courts to go round, because singles and doubles players are all on site at once, so people get pushed onto outside courts to warm up. That was the case here in 2024. Since the expansion the site fits everyone, and in 2025 the players kept bringing it up unprompted.
Player Spotting
This is one of the easier tournaments for it, and the best window is the one most people sleep through.
The first hour, our pick
Gates open at 10 and the first match is at 11. The moment those gates open, two things happen: people run for the practice courts to see who's out, and people form a line at the shop. That hour is the calmest, coolest, least crowded the site will be all day, and it's when the practice courts are busiest with actual stars. I spent every morning of my 2025 week with a coffee watching whoever was out. Bencic one day, Swiatek another.
Show courts before matches
You're let in an hour before play and you can usually catch whoever is playing that court warming up on it. Free access, built into any ticket, and almost nobody plans for it.
Qualifying, the underrated play
Qualifying runs August 11 and 12, before the main draw. The site is quieter, the top names are already in town practising even though they aren't playing, and you're watching people fight for their season. In 2025, Ella Seidel came through qualies, beat Emma Navarro and made the third round on her second tournament back from injury. Iva Jović lost in qualifying that same week, got in as a lucky loser and beat Linda Nosková 6-3 6-0 with the Serbian fans out in force. Those are the stories you catch if you come early.
Food & Drink
The reason the food here is good is that it's local. Same principle as the US Open. These are Cincinnati and Mason businesses with stalls on site, not generic concession units, so you get a taste of the area without leaving the grounds. You also cannot walk five steps without hitting a food stand or a bar.
Graeter's Ice Cream
The one everybody tells you about, and they're right. I held out until day six at 9:22 at night and then understood.
Skyline Chili
The local rite of passage. I have to be honest with you, I looked up what's in it and decided my stomach wasn't ready. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Go and report back.
Bibibop, our pick
Korean bowls, build your own, essentially Korean Chipotle. I ate it every single night I was there in 2025 and I'm not sorry. At most tournaments I can't find anything that suits me and I end up living on fries and chicken sandwiches and feeling terrible by day five. I left Cincinnati feeling fine, which almost never happens.
Water, and the trick worth knowing
They actively encourage reusable bottles and there are refill stations all around the grounds, including ringing Center Court. If you don't bring one, they sell bottles that come packed with ice so they stay cold all day.
Ana's tip: Bring your own empty bottle, then buy a cup of ice inside and tip it in. Your bottle has to come through the gate empty so you can't smuggle ice in, but you can buy it once you're through. And expect lines at the refill stations at the end of sets, because that's when everyone moves at once.
Prices are sporting-event prices. In 2025 a drip coffee with a splash of oat milk ran over $7, which is more than I pay in New York. Worth knowing before you plan your day around the concessions.
The shop is a whole event
Outside of the US Open this is the biggest tournament store I've been in. Bigger than Indian Wells, bigger than Miami, with something like fifteen colours of hat. And unusually, everyone here wears it. At most tournaments you'll spot two or three people in gear. Here it's hats, bags, bottles, dresses, shirts, the lot. Hence the queue at 10am.
The Grounds
I need to talk about the plants, because they're the reason this place feels the way it does. In my last guide I wrote that I wanted to stop a groundskeeper and make them tell me everything. This year I did.
Christopher Lamond of Lamond Design has been the tournament's landscaper for fifteen years. The renovation put in 1,200 trees, 900 shrubs, and 13,000 grasses and perennials. The campus nearly doubled in size and they filled it.
Then he told me the thing I haven't stopped thinking about. Nurseries grow flowers to peak for Mother's Day, because that's when everyone buys them. These flowers don't get started until after Mother's Day, deliberately, so they peak in late July and early August. The entire display is engineered to look its absolute best in the exact fortnight you're standing in it.
The 2025 theme was "tennis in the park," which meant pastels and purples and a looser feel after a couple of years of bolder yellows and pinks in big blocks. It survives conditions that should kill it: a windy, hot site with reflective heat coming off all that pavement, kept alive by a rebuilt irrigation system and a crew on site from 5am to 8:30 every morning, a couple of staff plus around twenty volunteers.
And here's why what you walk into in 2026 will look different again. There are perennials in the ground hidden behind the annuals, because a first-year perennial doesn't look like much. The ankle-height ones I saw in 2025 should be two to three feet tall by this August. His words: that year was cool, the next one will be even more special.
Where to sit and hang
The main fan area is bigger and airier than it was, but the better move is the small stuff scattered across the site: pockets with actual sofas, beach-chair seating in yellow and in blue and white with big screens in front of them, a covered bar near the north entrance, and mist stations tucked into the planting.
The lawns
There are open lawns now and I watched people flop down on them all week in 2025. Real Henman Hill energy, and I'd absolutely bring a picnic. The one catch is that the lawns don't have court views, so you're there for the hang, not the tennis.
For the camera roll
Frame everything through the flowers. My favourite photo I've ever taken at a tournament is from Grandstand here: purple blooms in the foreground, a player mid-point behind them. Champions Court is the prettiest court to shoot, and the small planted vignettes around the stadiums photograph better than the stadiums do.
The point is this. You are never going to come here and find there's nowhere to sit, nowhere to hang, and no way to get out of the sun.
The Heat
I need to be straight with you, because this is the thing that will actually shape your day.
It is hot, it is humid, and it's a different kind of hot from what you're expecting. Everyone points at Washington DC as the brutal one, and DC is brutal, but DC has trees and shade and places to hide. Cincinnati is open. It's vast and flat and the sun has nowhere to go but down onto you. I spent my week out there in a loop: a few minutes outside, back in for air conditioning, back out, back in. Players kept telling me they were fine because they all train in Florida humidity. I promise you that you are not them.
The rain works the same way. Thirty minutes of genuine downpour and then it's dry again, because it's hot enough that everything evaporates almost immediately. Play stops and then it doesn't.
Ana's tip: If I were coming purely as a fan to watch tennis, I would buy night session tickets. That's the honest answer. Evenings here are gorgeous and the tennis is just as good.
If you're doing a day session, work the shade. Every stadium has sections with a lip of cover, and you can spot the shade line on television: one side of the stadium completely empty, the other side full. That's not a scheduling quirk, that's people being smart. Do the same when you pick your seat.
Come for the first week
Everyone books the closing weekend. The first week is where this tournament is most fun: more matches, more courts running at once, easier practice access, cheaper tickets, and the whole field still in it. You can watch a top ten player from a handful of rows back on an outer court in week one. You cannot do that in week two.
Build your day around the morning
Get in when the gates open at 10, not at 11 when play starts. That hour is quiet and comparatively cool, the practice courts are full of stars, and you can plan the rest of your day with a coffee before the crowds arrive. Check the order of play the night before so you know which outer courts have the matches you want.
Know the one day that breaks the pattern
In 2026 every Round of 16 match is packed into a single day, Wednesday August 19. If you only get one day in the second week, that's the one to take. And know the pace is deceptive here: the courts are fast enough that Alcaraz told me if you lose the feeling out there it's very hard to find again. One day in 2025 Center Court finished its day session by half three and they had to add matches to fill it.
Pack This
It's August in Ohio on a wide open site. Pack for the sun before you pack for anything else. Tap each one as you sort it.
"I came here in 2024 and told you it was a smaller, better laid out US Open. I came back in 2025 and it wasn't the same tournament. They took eleven months and a parking lot and turned it into a park, then filled that park with the best players in the world. It's the friendliest big event I've been to, the ball kids will talk your ear off, the flowers are timed to peak the exact week you visit, and you can still sit close enough to an outer court to hear a player breathe. Come in the first week, buy the grounds pass, and go find the tennis."
See you in Mason,
Ana
Keep them free
Our tournament guides are free to read and always will be. If this one helped you plan your day in Mason, a little support keeps the next one coming.
Support Ground Pass →