US Open

The US Open is the biggest event in tennis. I know that is a fighting statement in a sport with four Slams, but I stand by it. It is the buzziest, the most star-studded, the most party-adjacent tournament on the calendar. It is also the most casual, and I need to be precise about what I mean by that, because casual here has nothing to do with dress code.

The US Open is the Coachella of tennis.

By casual I mean the crowd. This tournament pulls the highest proportion of fans who do not follow the sport week in and week out. The US Open has become a fixture of the New York summer social calendar, an event people plan their August around, and a huge share of them are not primarily there for the tennis. Star recognition tops out at the household names. Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic. Walk that same crowd past a multiple-Slam champion who is not in that tier and you will get blank faces. Iga Swiatek would be mobbed at Roland Garros. Here she is just another very good player in a very long line of them.

The myth worth busting

Because of all of that, the US Open has a reputation as a shallow crowd. People who have never been assume it is 24,000 people who could not name a seed.

That is wrong, and the reason it is wrong is New York itself.

This is a city built by immigrants, and that shows up in the stands in a way it simply does not at other American tournaments. Players from the Philippines, from Thailand, from India, from Poland, from anywhere, arrive here and find a genuine, loud, organized home crowd waiting for them. You do not get that in Indian Wells. You do not get it in Cincinnati. At the US Open a player ranked outside the top fifty can walk onto an outer court and hear their national anthem chanted back at them, and it is one of the most moving things about the place.

It is loud, and it never stops

There is no quiet moment at the US Open. Not one. At a tournament like Wimbledon you can hear a pin drop during a service motion. Here there is a permanent low roar: the concourse, the food court, the plaza, a marching band rehearsing somewhere you cannot see. Players comment on it. If your idea of tennis is reverent silence broken by polite applause, this is not your Slam.

It is crowded

2024 was the straw that broke the camel's back. The crowds reached critical mass and it was no longer fun to move around during some sessions, with lines wrapping around the outside courts. The tournament has made adjustments since then, and in 2025 things functioned better. You will still queue for food, for courts, for bathrooms. But it is a bit more organized now.

It is still worth the visit

Everything I have just listed as a flaw is also the reason the US Open is the most fun fortnight in tennis. The odds are high that you will be seated next to someone who talks through every point, claps at a double fault, or is four Honey Deuces deep and having the time of their life. A lot of people are here to see and be seen.

But a crowd that is loud, that reacts, that gets behind a player it has never heard of, is a crowd that makes tennis better. The sport is drifting in this direction anyway, away from stoic and hushed and toward something a bit livelier. The US Open just got there first.

This is the worst part of the US Open, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

Tickets are expensive, overpriced, and gone. Not gone as in selling fast, gone as in sold out through official channels and immediately relisted on resale at inflated prices. This tournament has the same structural resale problem as every major sold-out event in the US, and it is acute here because demand is enormous.

The Amex presale window used to be a genuine workaround, a way for cardholders to get tickets at face value. That has been effectively hollowed out. By the time you get in, everything is already sold and already on resale.

Grounds passes, which used to be the honest fan's ticket and the best value on site, sold out weeks ago and are also badly inflated.

If you do not have a ticket yet

Here is what I actually do, and it depends on being flexible, which is easier for me because I live here and am not paying for a hotel.

Strategy one: wait for the draw. Resale prices are set on speculation before the draw comes out. Once the schedule is published and people can see there is no marquee name on Ashe that day, those inflated listings start dropping fast. Wake up the morning of and look.

Strategy two: the post-start window. Ticketmaster listings for a session close one hour after that session begins. Which means that between 11am and noon, sellers holding unsold tickets are watching their window shut and dropping prices to move them.

Neither of these makes the US Open cheap. Nothing makes the US Open cheap. They make it survivable.

Open for All Day

There is one free day during the main draw. Thursday September 10 is Open for All Day, with free grounds admission. Note that it falls inside the later gate window, so gates open at 11am rather than 9:30am, and the evening session that night is separately ticketed.

What is on offer that day is doubles, junior tennis and wheelchair tennis around the outer courts. If your interest in tennis extends past the singles headliners, and it should, this is a brilliant day to be on site.

Fan Week is free. Zero dollars. Free dot com.

It is the best ticket in tennis, full stop, and I will die on this hill. If you have read the tickets section and closed the tab in despair, come back. This is the answer.

Fan Week runs August 23 to 29. New for 2026, Arthur Ashe Kids' Day opens the whole thing on day one rather than sitting later in the week.

You now need a Fan Access Pass. It is still free, but you have to register for it in advance and every adult needs their own. You cannot simply turn up at the gate the way you used to. Sort this before you plan anything else.

What you actually get

Competitive tennis. Fan Week is qualifying week. That is real, high-stakes tennis with real consequences, and as we talk about constantly on the podcast, the qualifying draw is where the best stories live. Young players breaking through. Players fighting back from injury. Certified qualifying-week legends like Bernard Tomic, who exist in their own genre entirely.

The practice sessions, which are the real prize. During Fan Week the big stadiums become practice courts. Arthur Ashe, Louis Armstrong, Court 17, the Grandstand. A schedule is released daily telling you exactly who is hitting and when. This means you can sit courtside in Arthur Ashe, in a seat that would cost you thousands of dollars during the main draw, and watch a world number one practice from close enough to see the sweat drip down their face. For, like I said, free.

I cannot overstate how good this is. It is the single biggest gap between what the US Open costs and what it can cost.

Mixed doubles. The mixed doubles championship has been moved out of the main draw and into Fan Week, and it has become a genuine spectacle. Where it used to be a fairly random assortment of pairings, it now puts big singles names together in combinations you would never otherwise see. The draw is split across two courts. The Louis Armstrong half is free to everyone on the grounds. The Arthur Ashe half is ticketed.

The paid parts

Not everything in Fan Week is free, so budget accordingly.

• The Arthur Ashe half of mixed doubles
• The exhibition night, which pairs current players with retired greats
• Taste of the US Open, the food-focused event, ticketed separately

Do not drive.

I know that for some of you this will not be possible, and I will get to that. But the headline is: do not drive.

The 7 train

We are in New York, which has the best subway system in the country, and the easiest way to get to Flushing Meadows is on it. Take the 7 train to Mets-Willets Point. The station is a short walk from the gates.

It is the fastest option and the safest. It runs all day and all night, and the MTA adds service for the tournament because they know exactly what is coming. Yes, the trains get packed. They also come constantly, which matters more. Most importantly, it means you are not sitting in the entry traffic, which is genuinely miserable and gets worse before evening sessions.

The LIRR

The Long Island Rail Road also runs to Mets-Willets Point, and it is the better call if you are coming from New Jersey or out on Long Island. Worth pricing against the subway depending on where you start.

If you absolutely must drive

You will need to buy parking, and it is expensive. Check the official transit and parking page for current lots and rates. Whichever way you drive in, come far earlier than you think you need to.

Gate times, and why they matter more than you think

Gates open at 9:30am. First matches are at 11am. Gates open later, at 11am, for the closing days of the tournament, so check your specific date before you set an alarm.

That ninety minute window exists for a reason. The tournament extended it from one hour because the entry queue was, at its worst, backed up the ramp all the way to the subway station. It is better now. It still builds badly as 11am approaches.

Get there when the gates open. Every time. I do, and I walk straight in while people who arrived at eleven are still outside in the sun.

Security and bags

This is a high security event in a city that takes these things seriously, and the screening reflects that. Rules change year to year, so check the official bag policy before you travel. But the safest approach is simple: bring as little as possible.

• No backpacks. A clear bag policy applies to anything larger than a small bag.
• A small sling bag or purse is your best option and will move fastest through the line.
• An empty reusable water bottle is essential. It has to be empty and they will check. On-site water is priced like everything else here, which is to say outrageously.
• Camera sizes are restricted during the main draw. I bring a small point-and-shoot. If you want to bring the big lens, come during Fan Week.

Three of them: Arthur Ashe, Louis Armstrong and the Grandstand. All three are ticketed, and Armstrong and the Grandstand have general admission sections accessible on a grounds pass, which matters enormously.

Arthur Ashe Stadium

This is going to be unpopular. I do not like Arthur Ashe.

It is too big to watch tennis in. I prefer smaller, more intimate venues, and Ashe is the opposite of that in every dimension.

The lower bowl is genuinely good. It is also the most expensive seat on the property, with tickets running as high as ten thousand dollars.

Above that, you are a very long way from the tennis. The upper tiers are so high that most people are watching the big screens, which is to say watching it on television in a very expensive outdoor setting. The top of Ashe is a different world entirely. People hold full conversations up there. They laugh, they get up, they wander. The sound is so cavernous and undifferentiated by the time it reaches the court that it registers to the players as ambient roar rather than a crowd.

I understand why people go. The marquee names play on Ashe and nowhere else, so if you want to see Alcaraz in person, this is the option in front of you.

Louis Armstrong Stadium

Armstrong is my favorite big court at this tournament by a distance. It is a properly intimate venue, the acoustics are wonderful, and it looks and feels like somewhere tennis should be played.

It also gets real names. In 2025 both Aryna Sabalenka and Venus Williams played here. A courtside Armstrong ticket costs a fraction of an Ashe equivalent and puts you dramatically closer to the tennis. It is the best value seat at the US Open.

Armstrong is a noisy court. Sound carries in from outside the stadium, including marching bands during the HBCU celebrations. It adds to the place rather than detracting from it.

Grandstand

The third largest show court, and a perfectly good one. Courtside tickets are cheaper again, and the tennis can be excellent.

In 2025 I watched Alexandra Eala beat Clara Tauson here and it was pandemonium. Standing room only, people sitting on the stairs into the court, the kind of noise you only get when a crowd has adopted someone. Exactly the New York international support I described earlier.

Honest verdict: it is not my favorite. Every other court here has some character to it and the Grandstand just does not, for me. It is a fine court. That is all.

This is where the US Open is at its best, particularly in the first week when the draw is so deep that extraordinary matches have nowhere to go but outside.

Court 17

The largest outer court and still stadium style, holding a serious crowd.

First week on Court 17 is a lottery you keep winning. In 2025 I watched Felix Auger-Aliassime fight his way through a match here, with no idea at the time that he would go on to reach the semifinals. That is the Court 17 experience: you wander in and you can catch a major tournament story as it is beginning.

An outdoor bar section was added overlooking the court in 2025, following the model the Australian Open and Roland Garros have used on similar courts. You can get a drink and watch from up there, and it has made an already lively court considerably more raucous.

Courts 4, 5 and 6

Three courts in a row, sitting between Arthur Ashe and the Grandstand, backing onto the practice courts.

Some of my favorite first-week hours at this tournament have been spent here. In 2025 I watched Gael Monfils battle it out on Court 5 well into the night, which is about as good as tennis gets.

The layout is the thing. There is elevated stadium seating along the baselines, and open walkways in the middle between the courts, so the sightlines run straight through. Sit in the elevated middle section on Court 5 and you can follow Courts 4 and 6 at the same time. Sit on the side that overlooks the practice courts and you get live tennis in front of you and players warming up behind.

Courts 11 and 12

A solid back-to-back pair with high side seating and a walkway between them. No baseline seating on either, which is worth knowing before you commit to a match there. Court 7 is the same. Everything else out there has baseline seating of some kind.

I am going to be blunt: the practice court experience is the weakest part of this tournament.

There are five dedicated practice courts behind Courts 4, 5 and 6. They sit low with high seating above them, and you cannot see much. You will not be getting autographs. You can watch people hit, and that is genuinely all.

This is where the top players practice, which means these courts fill instantly and stay full. There are attendants controlling entry. The standard approach for anyone determined to see a specific big name is to check the practice schedule, see that Alcaraz is on at two, and physically park themselves there from eleven in the morning. It works. I hate it. I very rarely go.

You will never find that by planning. You find it by walking.

Player spotting at the US Open is hard, and I would rather tell you that than set you up for disappointment.

The scale works against you. This is a crowded, heavily attended event, and the easy autograph you would collect without effort at a smaller tournament simply does not materialize here. Access is tighter and there are more people competing for it.

That said, here is where your chances actually are.

• Fan Week is your best window by a distance. Fewer people, more relaxed operation, more genuine access.
• Courtside on the outer courts after matches is your next best option during the main draw.
• Learn some faces. Players outside the marquee tier walk the grounds completely unbothered, because the casual crowd has no idea who they are. If you know who you are looking at, you can just say hello. This is one of the small rewards of actually following the sport.

And one thing you will see constantly on the big courts, which I find genuinely delightful: the kids with the oversized tennis balls, watching the score, timing their moment. The instant a match looks like it is ending they bolt down the center stairs to get courtside for a signature. When someone saves match point and the whole thing keeps going, they have to trudge back up to their seats and start the calculation again. It is the funniest recurring sight at this tournament.

It is expensive. Very, very expensive. This is stadium pricing at a premium event in New York and it is exactly as bad as that sounds.

It is also, in fairness, good. There is a real food scene here, better than at any other tournament I go to, built on collaborations with local New York restaurants and vendors. The caviar chicken nuggets are back, at $100, which I mention less as a recommendation and more as a data point about where you are.

The Honey Deuce

The signature drink, $23 this year, and the highest selling drink on site by an enormous margin.

The keepsake cup is part of the appeal and people collect them across years. I still have most of mine.

Bring your own

You are allowed to bring food onto the site. It needs to be in a small container and it will be checked, and the bag policy changes annually so verify before you go. But during Fan Week last year I brought my own sandwiches in without any issue, and given what food costs here, I would do it again.

If you are here for one day and you want the full experience, eat on site and enjoy it. If you are here repeatedly, bring sandwiches.

For the number of people who come through it, this site is small. It is a large tournament on a footprint that cannot quite carry it, and I have heard an expansion is in the works, which cannot come soon enough.

Navigation is easy enough. Congestion is the issue. Queues for food, queues for courts, the general friction of a site running at capacity all day. The saving grace is that there is a lot of seating and a lot of shade.

The lounges

Several card sponsors run lounges, and they are properly air conditioned, which in late August in Queens is not a small thing.

The Chase lounge is free for cardholders and reservations open when the schedule does. They go fast. Booking mine is one of the first things I do. There are free snacks, and they hand out a Chase US Open hat which is genuinely one of my favorites and which I still wear.

The Amex lounge is free for Amex cardholders and does not take reservations, which means queueing, and the queue gets long.

Phone chargers

Here is the thing: they are all gone by midday. Every day. There are simply more people than chargers. So getting one is the very first thing I do after walking through the gate, before anything else. If you are on site from 9:30am until the end of a night session, your phone is not surviving on its own.

Check the forecast before you leave. That sounds obvious, and people still do not do it.

The US Open runs from late August into early September, which is the hottest stretch of the New York year, but some years the heat is different. In 2024 it felt like a furnace. 2025 was genuinely pleasant. This year is trending cooler, but you cannot assume either.

Bring a hat and sunscreen. You will be outside for a very long day. For cooling off, use what is already on site: the umbrella seating in the food court, the trees by the Ashe fountain, and the air-conditioned cardholder lounges if you have access.

Rain

Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong both have roofs, so play continues on those two courts when it rains. Everything else stops.

Most tournaments get a packing list. The US Open gets the opposite, because here the less you carry the better your day is. You cannot bring a big bag through security anyway, and you will be moving through crowds from morning until night. This is the smallest bag I carry to any tournament all year. Tap each one as you sort it.

• Sunscreen. No explanation needed.
• A hat. Same reason. The outer courts have no cover at all.
• A reusable water bottle, empty. It has to be empty going through the gate and they will check.
• A small crossbody or sling bag. No backpacks, and a small bag clears security fastest.
• A portable phone charger, if you would rather not depend on the Chase dispensers being stocked by the time you arrive.
• A little cash, just in case, though most of the site runs on card.

That is it. Everything else is weight you will regret by the third match of the day.