{"id":1035891,"date":"2026-09-01T00:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1035891\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T00:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:00:19","slug":"the-us-open-is-going-to-be-a-bigger-party-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1035891\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Open is going to be a bigger party than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Tuesday night during US Open fan week<\/a>, Roger Federer returned to Arthur Ashe Stadium to play Andy Roddick in a highly anticipated exhibition match.<\/p>\n

But many of those in attendance cared little for watching the Swiss great and his famously powerful, graceful groundstrokes. <\/p>\n

An entire suite on premiere level one, one of the new premium levels at the stadium, was filled with influencers<\/a> who talked loudly during the match and stood up at random to snap selfies.<\/p>\n

Tinashe and DJ Ruckus attend Fan Week as part of the 2026 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY. USTA via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t even care about tennis,\u201d sniffed one fan who noted how loud the influencer crowd was when Federer was trying to serve. \u201cThey are all just getting drunk and being rowdy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, the US Open has turned into New York\u2019s longest, most debaucherous end-of-summer party. This year will be the most raucous yet for the tournament, which kicked off Sunday \u2014 if the Federer-Roddick match is any indication. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be a pearl clutcher because it definitely feels more relevant and vibrant than it did ten or 15 years ago,\u201d said Caitlin Thompson, founder of tennis\u2019 preeminent literary magazine, Racquet. \u201cBut, I also don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s really there to watch tennis [anymore].\u201d<\/p>\n

Day drinking bros Hamish Goonan, Michael Donovan, Lucas Chirico and friends put on a show in the stands, stacking up empty Honey Deuce cups. Steven Vago\/NY Post<\/p>\n

Anastasia Folorunso, host of the Ground Pass podcast, is more positive. <\/p>\n

\u201cDeep focus is for Wimbledon, this is New York baby,\u201d she quipped. <\/p>\n

In 2025, the party was one for the books. <\/p>\n

The smell of cannabis was so strong, with fans vaping and sparking up just beyond the tournament\u2019s gates, that Norwegian Casper Rudd dubbed the stench<\/a> \u201cthe worst thing about New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Donovan estimates he had \u201cquite a few\u201d Honey Deuces. Steven Vago\/NY Post<\/p>\n

Fans guzzled down a whopping 738,459 Honey Deuce cocktails and grew so rowdy Serbian star Novak Djokovic had to implore the chair umpire to restore order<\/a> at one point.<\/p>\n

This year, Danny Zausner, COO of USTA National Tennis Center, told The Post they expect to sell a record 800,000 Honey Deuces \u2014\u00a0up from a mere 5,000 in 2007 when the vodka-melon concoction first went pro.<\/p>\n

There will also be more influencers than ever before. In 2025, the Open doled out 54 \u201ccreator accreditation\u201d passes. That number has more than doubled for 2026, as first reported<\/a> by Front Office Sports.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local dispensaries say they\u2019re staffing up with additional drivers to meet demand from US Open attendees who want goods delivered to them just outside the stadium. <\/p>\n

Norwegian Casper Rudd was irked by the smell of weed at last year\u2019s open, telling a media outlet, \u201cFor me, this is the worst thing about New York \u2026 The smell is everywhere, even here on the courts.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get high, it makes [tennis] a little more entertaining,\u201d said Tre Davidson, a manager at Silk Road, a dispensary in Jamaica, Queens, just a few miles from Arthur Ashe. The shop\u2019s website promises drop off right at the grounds\u2019 gates.<\/p>\n

A 2025 attendee, a consultant in his mid-twenties at one of the Big Four accounting firms, recalled arriving at 10 a.m. and immediately hitting the Honey Deuces<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go down like water and I wasn\u2019t really buying water,\u201d the man, who spoke anonymously because his employer had paid him to attend with a dozen colleagues, told The Post. By day\u2019s end, he\u2019d had six of the signature cocktails and four beers, and seen one of his colleagues escorted out for berating the ref and calling him as \u201cpiece of s\u2014t\u201d who needed eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam champion, complained about crowd noise to a chair umpire during one of his matches at the U.S. Open in 2025. USTA via Getty Images<\/p>\n

His group stacked their empty cups to show off their consumption, as has become the trend in certain boozy circles. By the end of the day, their collection towered more than six-and-a-half feet tall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become a flex,\u201d longtime tennis fan Jay Strell, 57, told The Post of the boozing, likening the tournament in recent years to an \u201camusement park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some say the party-hard atmosphere is due, in part, to the fact that it\u2019s becoming increasingly difficult for regular tennis fans \u2014 not corporate lushes and social media-obsessed influencers \u2014 to score tickets.<\/p>\n

The ongoing $800 million renovations to Arthur Ashe are creating 2,000 new courtside seats and an extra level of suites \u2014 at the expense of the cheaper seats in the stadium\u2019s upper bowl.<\/p>\n

Spectators walk the grounds during Fan Week, which is free to attend. Some fans took to social media to vent their frustrations with over-crowding, which they attribute to the rising cost Grounds Passes. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The renovations are also adding to the chaos. At Tuesday\u2019s exhibition match, one elevator operator quipped, \u201cNo one knows where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even those who make a living in social media question what the Open has become. <\/p>\n

Ellie Williams, the 27-year-old known for covering NYC nightlife on social media @ellie.forthegirls, has been attending the Open since she was a kid and is nostalgic for tamer times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s kind of sad, honestly \u2026 [today it\u2019s very much like], let\u2019s dress up and go because I want to be seen,\u201d she said. \u201cWho is actually here for the tennis?\u201d<\/p>\n

Strell, who works in PR, agrees, but both he and Williams still plan on going to the Open. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s still a Grand Slam.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Tuesday night during US Open fan week, Roger Federer returned to Arthur Ashe Stadium to play Andy…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1035892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[109078,37971,62,1464,67,132,68,20886],"class_list":["post-1035891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-arthur-ashe","tag-influencers","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-us-open-tennis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117192846481432063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1035892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}