{"id":174101,"date":"2025-08-25T10:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/174101\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:34:09","slug":"the-us-open-dating-show-how-grand-slam-tennis-tournaments-are-shooting-for-a-gen-z-audience-tennis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/174101\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Open dating show: How Grand Slam tennis tournaments are shooting for a Gen Z audience | Tennis News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Over the course of the past week across the U.S. Open’s<\/a> grounds, eight couples went on their first dates \u2014 on camera. <\/p>\n

\"The The US Open dating show: How Grand Slam tennis tournaments are shooting for a Gen Z audience <\/p>\n

They were all part of the tournament\u2019s newest content creation venture, \u201cGame, Set, Matchmaker,\u201d the most recent play for Gen Z attention from the world of Grand Slam tennis. From Wimbledon<\/a> to Flushing Meadows, the sport is starting to take risks in pursuit of a new generation of fans. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always looking for new ways to engage new audiences,\u201d said Jonathan Zipper, the senior director of social media for the U.S. Tennis Association. The USTA governs tennis in the United States and runs the U.S. Open. “In particular, Gen Z and Millennials are a focus for us to bring into the sport of tennis. So we think about the different types of content that those demographics typically engage with and enjoy watching.\u201d <\/p>\n

The eight-episode YouTube series that made its debut Sunday comes amidst an explosive moment for dating shows. \u201cLove Island,\u201d \u201cLove is Blind\u201d and \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d are just a few shows in the genre that have dominated young American audiences in the past year. <\/p>\n

More importantly for the USTA, it believes this type of thing can draw attention. <\/p>\n

A year ago, the U.S. Open got 2.3 billion engagements across its official social platforms during the three weeks of action, a record for the event. Thanks to tennis\u2019 rising cultural capital, there are a lot of eyes on official tournament accounts. So the Slams are starting to get creative, and employing outside personalities to ramp up content creation is a clear step. <\/p>\n

Back in 2023, Wimbledon brought on Morgan Riddle<\/a>, a tennis influencer and the longtime girlfriend of fourth-ranked player Taylor Fritz<\/a> \u2014 the runner-up at the U.S. Open 12 months ago \u2014 to lead a digital video series. Called \u201cThreads,\u201d the series focuses on tennis fashion and lifestyle through the eyes of Riddle, and has become a recurring series at the tournament. <\/p>\n

With titles like \u201cHow Wimbledon made tennis chic\u201d and \u201cBeing the best means being stylish,\u201d the \u201cThreads\u201d series appeals directly to fans on the fashion side of the sport, a niche that has been the entry point to tennis for many of the young audiences that these tournaments are targeting. <\/p>\n

Since the initial announcement of the U.S. Open\u2019s venture with \u201cGame, Set, Matchmaker\u201d \u2014 which garnered mixed reactions on social media \u2014 the concept of the show has changed from a more individual style, with one woman going on dates with multiple suitors, to the more expanded form it has now. <\/p>\n

Ronnie Gunter, one of its participants, had recently moved to New York City when a friend asked if he would want to be involved in a dating show. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what?\u201d he recalled thinking. \u201cSure. I\u2019m new to the city, why not say yes to something that sounds like fun?\u201d <\/p>\n

Even without efforts like these from Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, tennis has a large presence on social media these days \u2014 as of Sunday, the #USOpen tag had 1.6 million posts. But while the tournaments do benefit from the visibility that comes from fans posting on social platforms, Zipper says there\u2019s an added value to the Slams getting in on the action themselves and creating what they hope will be viral content in-house. <\/p>\n

\u201c thinking about how we grow our owned and operated channels,\u201d said Zipper. \u201cWe\u2019re always trying to find ways to connect with audiences who have an interest in tennis, have an interest in sport, but can find additional connection to the U.S. Open brand. While there are so many content creators who are out there and creating content … we have been wanting to explore how we can continue to grow the audience on our channels directly.\u201d <\/p>\n

tennis: \/hub\/tennis<\/a> <\/p>\n

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Over the course of the past week across the U.S. Open’s grounds, eight couples went…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99157,3991,345,62,1464,99158,39499,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-174101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-dating-shows","9":"tag-gen-z","10":"tag-social-media","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-tennis-fashion","14":"tag-u-s-open","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115088960085863896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174101","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=174101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}