From Forest Hills to the “Zoo”: How New York Changed the US Open
The US Open has never been the quietest, neatest or most traditional Grand Slam.
That is part of its appeal.
Wimbledon asks spectators to respect the ceremony.
Roland Garros asks players to solve the clay.
The Australian Open sells summer energy.
New York asks a different question:
Can you concentrate while the entire city seems to be happening around you?
At Flushing Meadows, players contend with airplanes, music, crowds, late-night matches, food smells, spectators moving through the stands—and cannabis smoke drifting toward some of the courts.
After losing to Alexander Bublik in the second round, Adrian Mannarino described the US Open as becoming “a bit of a zoo.” He complained about marijuana odor, conversations, constant noise and spectators moving while points were being played.
He was not merely complaining about a smell.
He was raising a larger question:
How much should tennis change to attract a wider audience before it begins interfering with the competition it is trying to sell?
From Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows
The US Open spent 68 years at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills before moving to Flushing Meadows in 1978.
Forest Hills was intimate, leafy and traditional. It was also increasingly inadequate for a tournament that needed more courts, spectators, television infrastructure and room to grow.
Flushing Meadows offered scale.
The new facility developed around a stadium originally built for the 1964 World’s Fair. Louis Armstrong Stadium became the tournament’s main arena from 1978 until Arthur Ashe Stadium opened in 1997.
The move represented more than a change of address.
It changed the tournament’s identity.
Forest Hills felt like tennis being presented to tennis people.
Flushing Meadows felt like tennis being offered to New York.
The old tournament was associated with a private club. The new tournament occupied public parkland and invited a much larger, broader and louder audience into the experience.
The US Open did not simply move into a bigger stadium. It moved from club culture into mass culture.
Jimmy Connors became the perfect early symbol of that transition.
He had already won the tournament at Forest Hills on grass in 1974 and clay in 1976. He then won at Flushing Meadows on hard courts in 1978, becoming the only man to win the US Open on three different surfaces. The louder public venue seemed designed for his confrontational personality.
The move helped transform the US Open into one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
But mass culture also brings mass-culture problems.
Today in US Open history: Venus had to eliminate Serena
On September 4, 2005, Venus Williams defeated Serena Williams 7-6(5), 6-2 in the fourth round.
The strange part was not that Venus won.
It was that the sisters met so early.
Between 1999 and 2002, Venus and Serena had combined to win four consecutive US Open singles titles. But rankings and injuries placed them in the same section of the 2005 draw, forcing one of the tournament’s biggest attractions out before the quarterfinals.
Both sisters described the experience—and the windy, uneven match—as “bizarre.” It was their earliest meeting at any tournament since the second round of the 1998 Australian Open.
That match offers a useful lesson for tennis today.
A draw can be competitively fair while still producing a commercially unfortunate result.
Television wanted the Williams sisters in a semifinal or final. Fans wanted both women to advance. The tournament wanted the larger story.
But sport cannot arrange every draw around the most marketable outcome.
The answer is not to protect famous players.
It is to make more players famous.
Tennis’s marketing problem is not that stars sometimes lose early. It is that the sport has not consistently taught audiences whom to care about next.
Mannarino’s complaint is about more than cannabis
Mannarino lost to Bublik 6-3, 6-1, 6-1 before criticizing the playing environment.
“You can smell weed on the court,” he told Eurosport, adding that spectators were moving and talking during play and that the tournament was tolerating conduct that previously would have been restricted to changeovers.
He is not the first player to notice it.
Court 17 has developed a particular reputation because of its proximity to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. In 2023, Maria Sakkari complained about the odor during a match, while Alexander Zverev joked that the court smelled like “Snoop Dogg’s living room.”
The USTA investigated but found no evidence of people smoking inside the stadium. The odor was believed to be drifting from the adjacent park.
The complaints continued in 2026. Katie Boulter said the smell could take players out of the moment, while Francesca Jones and Harriet Dart also encountered it around the practice and outer courts. The tennis center is smoke-free, but the USTA has limited control over legal activity outside its grounds.
Some people will dismiss this as harmless New York atmosphere.
But elite tennis depends on extremely fine sensory control.
Players are trying to:
- Read an opponent’s toss
- Recognize spin
- Track the ball through lights and shadows
- Hear the quality of contact
- Regulate breathing
- Maintain emotional concentration
- Make decisions in fractions of a second
Unexpected movement behind the baseline can interrupt visual tracking. A conversation can break a serving routine. A powerful smell can become an involuntary focus of attention.
The issue is not whether cannabis smoke favors one player.
The issue is whether avoidable distractions should affect a Grand Slam match.
When atmosphere becomes interference
Mannarino’s “zoo” comment reached beyond cannabis.
The US Open has deliberately become more permissive, commercial and festival-like. Fans move more freely. Music fills the grounds. Food, fashion, celebrities, influencers and social media are increasingly central to the product.
In 2026, approximately 100 influencers received credentials, including about 20 concentrating on food and beverages. Players reported content creation interfering with matches, including a photo shoot during Naomi Osaka’s contest and spectators taking selfies while Jessica Pegula was playing.
Tennis wants the reach influencers provide.
Players want the concentration their profession requires.
Both positions are reasonable.
The solution is not to return Flushing Meadows to country-club silence. That would remove part of the US Open’s identity.
But the tournament can establish clearer boundaries:
- Permit movement in designated areas without allowing it directly behind the baseline during points.
- Establish content zones away from active courts.
- Enforce silence once the server begins the service motion.
- Consider environmental exposure when assigning courts.
- Work with the city to create larger smoke-free buffers around the grounds.
- Protect players from extremely late match starts.
New York should remain New York.
The crowds should be passionate. The night sessions should feel electric. The grounds should reflect the diversity and energy of the city.
But atmosphere should surround the match—not overwhelm it.
A great sporting environment adds pressure to the competition without becoming a competitor itself.
The move from Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows made the US Open bigger, more accessible and more culturally important.
The challenge now is protecting the qualities that made that evolution successful.
The US Open should never become Wimbledon.
But it should also remember that underneath the food, fashion, celebrity sightings and social-media spectacle, people came to watch tennis.
