There’s a moment right when you walk into Arthur Ashe Stadium for the first time where you just stop. I’ve been in rooms with movie premieres, film festival crowds, comic con floors packed shoulder to shoulder — but nothing quite prepares you for the scale of that stadium and the buzz radiating off 20,000 people who all showed up for the same reason: they wanted to see something they’d remember.
This was my first US Open, and I picked a good one to start with — the women’s semifinals.
The Star Power Was Real
You expect a certain level of glamour at a Grand Slam, but I wasn’t ready for just how many people I’d recognize walking the grounds. Michelle Obama was there, and even in a crowd full of celebrities and A-listers, you could feel the room shift a little when she moved through it. There’s a kind of gravity some people carry, and she has it in a way that’s hard to describe unless you’ve seen it in person.
Ciara was also there, glowing after her recent pregnancy announcement, and honestly it added a nice, warm energy to the day — like everyone in her section was just happy for her. It’s one of those things that reminds you tennis at this level isn’t just a sporting event, it’s a cultural one. Everybody comes out for the Open.
Coco Gauff and That First-Set Electricity
Now let’s talk about the tennis, because that’s what we came for.
Coco’s first set was something else. The crowd was locked in from the first point, and there’s an energy that builds around her that’s hard to put into words if you haven’t experienced it live. Every big shot, every point she won, the stadium responded like it was collectively holding its breath and then exhaling all at once. You could feel how much New York has adopted her as their own.
I won’t lie — I was disappointed when she ended up losing the match. But disappointment aside, I walked away proud of her. The way she competed, the way she carried herself in front of a crowd that size, at that stage of a Grand Slam — that’s not nothing. That’s a young athlete who’s going to be fine.
The Grounds Were Their Own Experience
What surprised me almost as much as the tennis was everything happening outside the stadium bowl. The US Open has basically built a small city around the tournament, and the sponsor activations were next level.
Cadillac had a striking presence set up, Ralph Lauren’s space had that clean, classic country-club aesthetic you’d expect from the tournament’s official outfitter, and the American Express Fan Experience was probably my favorite stop of the day. They had us customizing our own tennis balls and writing postcards to send to friends and family — small thing, but it’s the kind of detail that makes an event feel personal instead of just transactional. I’ll be curious to see whose postcard actually arrives first.
Wait… Tennis Crowds Are LOUD?
Here’s the thing nobody tells you if you’ve only ever watched tennis on TV: it is not quiet in that stadium. At all.
I always had this image in my head of tennis as this hushed, reserved sport — polite claps, maybe an “ooh” here and there. That is not what semifinal night at Arthur Ashe sounds like. Fans were chanting, calling out between points, getting locked into full call-and-response energy like it was a playoff game. There were multiple moments where a player was set to serve and the chair umpire had to stop and ask the crowd to quiet down before play could continue.
It genuinely made me wonder — is Wimbledon like this? Is Roland-Garros like this? Because if the hush I grew up seeing on broadcast is really just a broadcast thing and not a room thing, I’ve been misunderstanding this sport’s live atmosphere for years.
The Real MVP Move of the Night: Booking the Uber Early
Last thing, and this is a public service announcement for anyone planning their first Open trip: book your ride home before the match ends.
We locked in an Uber ahead of time for $27. By the time the match wrapped at 11:30 PM and thousands of people hit their phones at once, prices had spiked past $150 for the same ride. Small planning move, massive savings — and honestly, watching everyone around us scrambling and staring at surge pricing was almost as entertaining as the match.
Final Thoughts
First US Open, in the books. Great tennis, better people-watching, an atmosphere way louder than I expected, and a lesson learned about surge pricing. Already thinking about next year.