NEW YORK (AP) — There are some tennis players, such as Frances Tiafoe or Madison Keys or Ben Shelton, who can’t wait for the U.S. Open to come around each year, with its boisterous crowds, its bold-faced names in the stands, its music at changeovers, its buzz. To them, the louder, the better. Start the show and bring the noise.
“I operate well in chaos,” said Tiafoe, twice a semifinalist at Flushing Meadows.
Sometimes, it all can get out of control, as happened during a match that ended early Monday. There was a delay of more than five minutes while spectators booed and shouted — egged on by 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev, who was angered by chair umpire Greg Allensworth’s ruling after a photographer interrupted play by going on court, of all things.
“They didn’t want to stop,” Medvedev said about the fans. “So, whatever.”
US Open chaos is always there, even if it doesn’t reach Medvedev levels
Not everyone is able to shrug off that sort of mayhem at a Grand Slam tournament famous — some would say infamous — for the over-served fans, airplanes roaring overhead, the Manhattan-Queens commute and the odors of everything from marijuana to food being grilled.
“It’s something you really can’t train the brain to kind of deal with,” 1991-92 champion Monica Seles said. “You just adjust to it.”
There also are those, such as 2024 champion Aryna Sabalenka or 2014 champion Marin Cilic or Petra Kvitova, who didn’t start out with an affinity for the anarchy — “Really confusing,” was Sabalenka’s initial impression — but grew to be OK with it.
Some tennis players go from loving the US Open madness to hating it
And there are even some whose opinion shifted the other way, from embracing to despising.
“In my 20s, I loved coming here. There was so much to do. But the older I get, the less I enjoy being here. It’s a little bit chaotic. There’s always a lot of noise. A lot of smells everywhere. I’ve visited most of the places in New York; I don’t need to go to Central Park for the 1,003rd time,” said Adrian Mannarino, 37, a Frenchman who began his 15th U.S. Open on Sunday by upsetting 29th-seeded Tallon Griekspoor.
“It used to be fun,” Mannarino said about the tournament, “but sometimes I’m like, ‘Gosh, I wish I could concentrate a little bit more.’”
The types of scenes at the US Open do not show up at Wimbledon
The hushes that envelope Wimbledon’s Centre Court or the French Open’s Court Philippe-Chatrier — which hold nearly 10,000 fewer spectators than 23,859-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium — are harder to come by in New York.
“Wimbledon, for example — it’s proper, it’s elegant, it’s elevated. People are definitely more quiet and respectful, I guess you could say,” said Emma Navarro, an American who reached the semifinals at Flushing Meadows last year. “U.S. Open, it feels a bit more casual. Casually rowdy, I guess I would call it.”
There is a constant hum at Ashe and other arenas.
That’s just fine with Shelton, whose first of two major semifinals came at the 2023 U.S. Open.
“I guess I find peace in the chaos,” he said, “because I feel more uncomfortable at the quiet tournaments.”
For the retired Agnieszka Radwanksa, the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2012, nothing ever came as easily at the U.S. Open, where she went 0-5 in fourth-round matches.
“Everything takes so much energy from you and just sucks it up. Everything is loud. All the smells around, like the hamburgers. Everything is really noisy. The traffic,” Radwanska said. “I respect the players that don’t see the difference and don’t feel that and can play like nothing is happening.”
US Open runner-up Casper Ruud dislikes New York’s smell of marijuana
Some find the Big Apple itself as problematic as the tournament site.
Elisabetta Cocciaretto, the Italian who stunned 2024 U.S. Open finalist Jessica Pegula in Wimbledon’s first round last month, never felt at ease until she stopped staying at an official tournament hotel and switched to a more off-the-beaten-path spot.
“I like to separate myself a bit,” Cocciaretto said. “Because otherwise, you’re amid the madness. And if there’s too much of that, your head explodes.”
Casper Ruud, the 2022 U.S. Open runner-up, felt “overwhelmed” the first time he came to the event as a junior.
While he’s come to enjoy New York, particularly the restaurants, there’s one thing that bothers him about the city: “I’m not a big fan of the smell of weed when you walk around. … Every corner of every street, you smell it.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
