‘Hash court’ and high drama: how weed became the US Open’s new distraction | US Open Tennis 2025
TIt has always been the most thoughtless of the four Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, a place where the soundtrack is all howling trains, the roar of air traffic above and well lubricated crowds that it is the racket game on the ball. Frances Tiafoe likes to call it “organized chaos”, the kind of atmosphere affirming life which, according to him, teases his best performances. For some, this is not a step at all, but a vagueness of bass changes, celebrity cameras with a rotating door and the incessant rattle of metro n ° 7 nearby.
In recent years, however, distraction has even crossed the normalized Bedlam which gives the tournament its character. Alongside the Honey Deuce and Heineken Cocktails with a free flow, a different defect has died into the fortnight: the spicy and undoubted smell of marijuana. It derives through the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with enough frequency for the players to have started to treat it as not a bug but as a characteristic of the event itself.
Casper Ruud, finalist of the US Open 2022 in Norway, was the last to complain during the double mixed tournament last week when he was associated with Iga świątek. “For me, it’s the worst thing about New York,” he said. “The smell of cannabis. It is everywhere, even here where the tournament is played. But we must accept it. I think it is boring to be on the field while someone smokes a joint. It is not fun for us players to be tired and to have to inhale the smell of hashish at the same time. We can do nothing unless the law changes, but I doubt it.”
The complaints were strong enough for the Danish media to even nicknamed the court 17 chopping – The “hash runs” – cheeky stenography for the Bullring type entertainment court where the aroma of weeds has become almost a part of the atmosphere that the noise of the crowd.
The USTA has maintained a strict non-smoke policy since at least 2011, when the smoking ban by the mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, was extended to public parks, beaches and pedestrian places. However, since New York legalized recreational cannabis in 2021, Flushing Meadows has become a microcosm of changing state culture.
In the reasons, security applies the rules (if not aggressively). But take a few steps right outside Corona Park, which lends to the southern end of the field, and any person over the age of 21 can legally settle: under the 2021 law, adults can have up to 85 grams of cannabis and smoking anywhere in tobacco is authorized. Sunday afternoon, while the first day of the tournament took place, the smokers fired pre-slacks in clear view of the police gaggles outside the southern door. The change was adopted by city leaders. Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, even encouraged New Yorkers to “have fun, illuminate, but above all – spend money”. This permissive position, associated with a deployment of unequal license which allowed hundreds of unregulated windows to flourish, made cannabis inevitable in the five districts – and this particular extent of queens is no exception.
The smell of weeds at the US Open, however, predates legalization. In 2014, Martina Hingis pointed out in a double match on the former court of the Tribune. Since then, a parade of players – Nick Kyrgios, Maria Sakkari, Alexander Zverev – has all expressed his frustration. The defeat in the first round of Sakkari in 2023 against Rebeka Masarova has become one of the most notable episodes. Halfway through the match she pleaded with the chair referee on distraction, saying later to journalists: “Sometimes it smells of food, sometimes it smells like cigarettes, sometimes it smells like grass. This is something that we cannot control because we are in an open space. There is a park behind. People can do what they want. “
Kyrgios, fuel in the best of cases, was exasperated during his victory in the second round on Benjamin Bonzi in 2022. He urged the referee to remind spectators not to smoke, complaining about the smell was particularly severe on his breathing as asthmatic. “It was damn marijuana. Obviously, I’m not going to complain about smells of food, “he said later. “But probably not something I want to breathe between the points.” Subsequently, he admitted the distractions of New York – fans of heckling, rugging trains and now of Marijuana smoke – made it more difficult to remain locked up.
Zverev was a bunter. After a match on the field 17 two years ago, the German compared the atmosphere to “Snoop Dogg’s Living Room”. The intimate stage of 2,800 places without reserved seats, which has become a favorite of fans since the disappearance of the old platform, has also acquired a reputation as an epicenter of the smell. Zverev’s assessment has since taken his own life. A story this week in preview of Thursday’s judicial assignments joked that Holger Rune had been sent to chopping For his second round match, creating an aura that turned out to be more sticky than your Kine Bud of the highest quality.
Tournament officials resisted the suggestion that Flushing Meadows has become a Stoner playground.
“Although we cannot control what is happening in the field of the National Tennis Center of the USTA Billie Jean King, we continue to be vigilant while we maintain this installation as a smoke-free vibrant,” a USTA spokesperson in The Guardian said this week. “This includes the application of our security teams and services to the guests when they are informed of anyone who could smoke, which makes it aware that it may be legal in [New York]That smoking is not authorized on the property of the parks, including the tennis center. We are constantly working with the NYPD department and parks, and we believe that this has helped to reduce any smoking near our fineline. »»
After Sakkari’s comments in 2023 made the headlines, the USTA examined the video sequences and interviewed the staff. “No evidence” was found enlightening fans inside short 17, said a spokesperson for the tournament. Instead, the officials suggested, the smoke probably derived from Corona Park. The players themselves recognized as much. Marketa Vondrousova, the Wimbledon 2023 champion, said after her match that same year: “I actually felt it too. You feel it a lot. I think it’s just the court 17. This court is so far, it’s almost in the park. I think it comes from the park.”
From the point of view of the organizers, nothing has changed. It is not like the posters of past tournaments that line the intestines of the Arthur Ashe stadium were exchanged for Bob Marley Photomosaics and the Pink Floyd Back catalog. The Usta is always sold as the most buzzing of the four slams, but categorically not this kind of buzz. But it is not only the spectators who look at relaxed attitudes towards cannabis. A cameras operator, who asked for anonymity to protect his work, said he was now based on edible products to pass quarters of marathon which sometimes extend over 4 p.m.
Safety employees parked by external courts have noted the same thing. “We cannot control what is going on outside in the park,” said one of them. “You catch a puff in every corner. Here, that’s just normal.” For all reproaches, the rules are clear: in doors, smoking of all kinds, including weed pens, is prohibited. Beyond them, the USTA has no competence.
Fans, too, seem largely imperturbable. Steven Lewis, queuing a Court 17 match on Monday afternoon, revived the complaints. “You can feel him walk in the street in Midtown, sometimes at eight in the morning a weekday, and it was the same before he even was legalized,” he said. “It’s just a game of New York. I don’t see why the open would be different.”
Indeed, part of the plot here is cultural. The open has always relied on its identity as the noisiest and least buttoned major in tennis. For players more used to the muffled lawns of Wimbledon or Roland Garros – where there is a total ban on alcohol in the stands to ensure a respectful atmosphere during the game – this can look like a sensory overload. For residents, it’s just the city of the microcosm.
Legal marijuana is now anchored in New York’s life. This reality is worried about Prim’s image tennis projects, but contradictions are inevitable during a tournament organized at the heart of the queens. As Ruud deplored, even before Wednesday’s defeat in the second round on the hash court, there may be little appeal beyond the loop of the nose and to focus on the following point. Some players thrive and others retreated. Anyway, the open continues to drive.
