This year in Ohio, a state which might be shifting back from red to purple, there’s been considerable attention on the advertising in the governor’s race between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. As you may have seen, that contest gained national attention last week because of Ramaswamy’s grotesque use of Acton’s estranged mother in an attack ad against her. Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, lost custody of her daughter after her then-husband, Acton’s stepfather, was indicted for raping her when she was 12 years old.

“There’s a decency that we should expect out of our public officials,” former President Barack Obama said of the Ramaswamy controversy at a rally in Cleveland on Saturday. “And I don’t know what’s happened where the standards of behavior have gotten so low that somebody could run an ad like that.”

The rebuke for Ramaswamy’s attack against Acton has been near universal across civil society; even the incumbent Republican governor in Ohio, Mike DeWine, said that the ad was “deeply, deeply troubling” and “wrong,” urging the Ramaswamy campaign to take the ad down.

Subscribe now

That’s all well reported and terrible. But I’m writing about this race on Bounces because of what Democrats have lobbed back in the other direction, an attack that I’ve never seen before in a political campaign.

A group called “Ohioans for Lower Costs,” funded by the Democratic Governors Association, rolled out a new ad that paints Ramaswamy as dangerously out of touch with Ohio voters. Prominently featured second in their list of arguments against him, and delivered with disdain: “His favorite sport is tennis.”

The ad then closes with more images of Ramaswamy playing tennis, making it clear that “tennis player” is the lasting impression that Democrats want viewers to have of this candidate to hammer home his undesirability.

Ramaswamy had previously made his own campaign video this summer of himself discussing policy in between highlights of his playing tennis on a private green clay court somewhere.

Even though I appreciate seeing one-handed backhands in the wild, this video was, in my professional opinion, profoundly dorky, off-putting shit. The way he said “slice” and you knew a slice was coming…corny as hell. The little satisfied exhale at the end after the smash? Good grief.

Subscribe now

Many Ohio voters apparently agreed with my assessment. I corresponded on Saturday with a staffer working for Democrats in Ohio who said that focus groups of voters had been alienated by Ramaswamy’s tennis connection.

“People thought he came across like a jerk and arrogant, and they found him playing tennis while explaining his policies distracting,” they said. “It was a bullet point in the memo from the pollster: it alienated voters in every group.”

While it’s specific aversion to Ramaswamy, it’s also a remarkable temperature reading of how tennis is viewed in America right now as a pendulum swing of sorts from the discourse last month in New York. There, many people wanted to attend the U.S. Open because it made them look rich and fancy in an aspirational way that they could show off on social media.

But when it comes to an election in a Midwestern state—particularly at a time when voters report feeling worse off economically than they were a year ago—that same association that tennis has with out-of-reach wealth is a considerable liability for Ramaswamy. Acton had previously hammered Ramaswamy for attending the U.S. Open last month when he was spotted in the crowd at a Tommy Paul match, claiming that he went there “jetting off in his private plane to watch the US Open in VIP seating with his billionaire friends.”

“Instead of talking to voters who know his scam policies will raise costs for our state, he fled to his favorite city with his fellow billionaires at the U.S. Open after flying his private jet to NYC,” Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer said on the party’s website.

Even unofficial critics, like comedian Nimesh Patel in 2023, have used tennis to mock Ramaswamy.

Once he became a recognizable figure from his failed presidential run in the 2024 Republican primaries, Ramaswamy has often been spotted at tennis tournaments. Giri Nathan wrote at Defector about sitting near Ramaswamy at the 2024 U.S. Open final:

During the men's final, I watched an elderly Indian man with a Proud Boy haircut—I didn't know guys from this demographic got this haircut—stand up and walk over to shake the hand of Vivek Ramaswamy, tennis lover and humiliated presidential candidate. Ramaswamy stared at the Jumbotron during changeovers, and as increasingly obscure celebrities were highlighted, he uttered the names of those celebrities with his wife, evidently awaiting his own turn on screen, which never came. He spent almost an entire set of tennis workshopping the caption of a photo of himself.

Subscribe now

A year earlier, Ramaswamy had tried to parlay his U.S. Open attendance into a hot take that was barely half-baked. While he was still campaigning for president—in the same half-hearted, sycophantic way that the rest of the field in that 2024 Republican primary was doing—Ramaswamy had attended the 2023 U.S. Open. In a TV appearance soon after, he came up with an impressively terrible idea for how the disruptive protesters at the Coco Gauff vs Karolina Muchova semifinal should’ve been handled, one so bad that even the host on Fox Business couldn’t abide it.

Ramaswamy has been unapologetic about his love for tennis. But as he’s learning, even in Ohio, a state home to one of the world’s biggest tennis tournaments in the Cincinnati Open, tennis doesn’t play well.

In Ramaswamy’s defense on this general point, I think that’s unfair. I think it’s OK to love tennis! I, certainly, have never thought of less of someone just for playing tennis or being a tennis fan—and I thank you all of you tennis fans for subscribing to Bounces, furthermore.

I also recognize that the way his opponents are using tennis against him is a way to “other” Ramaswamy, to make him seem somehow stereotypically less masculine, or perhaps un-Ohioan and un-American.

As former Trump staffer A.J. Delgado wrote on Twitter when I posted the video:

“It’s bc there is something effete and painfully “try hard upper class” about tennis being one’s favorite sport. An American man’s favorite sport is football, bball, hockey, (in the past 10 years, maybe answering “MMA”), some even soccer - but not tennis, ffs.”

It’s not lost on me that there’s a surge in Indian-American boys playing tennis right now, also: in the Boys 18s singles draw in Kalamazoo this summer, of 192 names, about 30—roughly 15 percent—appear to be of identifiable Indian or otherwise subcontinental origin.1 That’s a huge percentage! There are a ton of Indian American kids who love and play tennis, and I don’t think it should make them or their families seem “less American” to do so.

Ramaswamy also seemed to recognize this perception, so a few days after attending last month’s U.S. Open, he cravenly made a new sports-based ad, this time in a batting cage. Dressed for golf and not exactly looking like a Silver Slugger, Ramaswamy tried to make himself look more American via baseball, and despite only showing himself making contact, I think he struck out pretty badly.

Subscribe now

How Good a Tennis Player is Vivek Ramaswamy?

Cosplaying as an athlete has been part of Ramaswamy’s public profile, even when sticking to his sport of choice. Longtime Bounces readers may remember I wrote two years ago about Ramaswamy entering a professional tournament—an ITF $25k in Ohio—and about how he always films his tennis videos from an angle where you can’t see where his balls are going.

From November 2024:

“Playing my first ITF Futures qualifier round on Monday,” Republican presidential primary also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy told his three million Twitter followers and nearly two million Instagram followers on Saturday. “Finding a tiny bit of time to train, despite just a *few* other things going on right now.”

Ramaswamy accompanied the announcement with a video of himself hitting inside the venue of this week’s $25,000 ITF Futures event in Columbus, the Ty Tucker Tennis Center.

In the busy post-election fracas, Ramaswamy’s announcement gained a trace of notice. But when the entry list, draws, and the order of play came out for Monday in Columbus, Ramaswamy was nowhere to be found…

It would’ve been a fascinating audit of Ramaswamy’s tennis ability, but he didn’t post up. Ramaswamy was ostensibly busy with running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Elon Musk at the time, but one of Musk’s first moves toward “efficiency” seemed to be dumping Ramaswamy on Inauguration Day. He has not subsequently announced entry into any professional tournament.

Before and after that stunt, Ramaswamy reliably posts his tennis videos from an angle where you can’t see where the ball is going when he hits it, so it’s tough to get any true sense of if he’s a good player or not.

As I wrote in 2024: “Swinging as hard as you can with frantically frenetic footwork is something nearly anyone can do for a 15 second clip for social media—keeping up anywhere near that effort over a whole match would be something to see, which is why tennis recruiting video guidelines tell prospective players to do exactly the opposite of what Ramaswamy has done.”

The 41-year-old Ramaswamy’s tennis bona fides have been the subject of some scrutiny, but there’s no doubt he was a decent tennis player in his youth. I dove deep and trawled newspaper archives and found mentions of Ramaswamy’s youth tennis dating back to 1997, when he started showing up in 12-and-under tournaments around Cincinnati.

The next year, he won a local 14-and-under tournament.

He was listed as the No. 1 “Novice” 14-and-under player by the Greater Cincinnati Tennis Association.

He had a one-handed backhand back then, too, but his hair was much better.

As he reached high school, however, his results were less impressive. He played well for his school team, St. Xavier, but the reports have him topping out at No. 3 singles for the school, albeit putting up a very strong record against the third-best players from other schools.

(Also, it’s such a shame that local media no longer covers high school sports this robustly nearly anywhere in America.)

By his senior year, Ramaswamy was barely getting mentioned in local tennis coverage; he only showed up once in coverage I found, as part of a doubles pairing.

To be clear, none of this is anything to be ashamed of; Ramaswamy is almost certainly a better tennis player than I ever was, for starters.

Subscribe now

But somewhere along the way, Ramaswamy’s tennis background became overinflated—presumably sourced from Ramaswamy himself.

In 2015, a slurpy piece in Forbes described Ramaswamy as having been “a nationally ranked junior tennis player whose serve could hit 120mph.” That claim sounds immediately dubious, and it doesn’t help the sniff test that the article also described him as “young, handsome and charming” and “any parent’s dream,” for context.

But it caught on. In March 2020, a write-up of Ramaswamy on the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans page echoed that, calling him “a nationally ranked junior tennis player.”

(In 2023, before launching his presidential campaign, Ramaswamy reportedly paid someone to scrub Soros mentions from his Wikipedia page, since the Soros family is often a right-wing scare word.)

A 2022 profile in The New Yorker, after Ramaswamy had pivoted to politics and published a book called “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam” also repeated the claim that Ramaswamy was “a nationally ranked tennis player.”

Subscribe now

But I can find no such proof of Ramaswamy ever having been a tennis player of any national note or relevance. All of the media coverage I found of his youth tennis playing was localized to newspapers in Southwest Ohio; he never gained any mention elsewhere that I’ve discovered. The only evidence I’ve found of anything regional was Ramaswamy showing up as being ranked 48th among 16-and-under players in the USTA Midwest Section, according to a 2002 yearbook.

Ramaswamy has a UTR profile which has a decent amount of activity, most recently last January, and a rating of ~9. According to the site, among men over 40, he’s ranked somewhere outside the top 22,000.

This guy isn’t awful at tennis, by most fair assessments. But he certainly sucks in many other ways.

I reached out to the Ramaswamy campaign, the Democratic Governors Association, and a few of Ramaswamy’s former teammates seeking comment for this article, but have not yet heard back at time of publication. Russ King, Ramaswamy’s high school tennis coach, could not be reached because he passed away in 2024, but he did reminisce about Ramaswamy in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer a year earlier:

His tennis coach remembers Ramaswamy debating politics with him in the front seat of the van, with Ramaswamy taking the conservative side and King taking the other side...

…some of the views he’s heard from Ramaswamy [as a presidential candidate] have surprised him, particularly his comments on climate change. Ramaswamy in the first Republican debate said that the “climate change agenda is a hoax.” He has said the country should abandon what he called the “climate cult” and unleash fracking, coal and nuclear energy to spur economic growth.

Those comments don’t jibe with what King remembers of his long-ago debates in the tennis van crisscrossing Ohio. “I can’t believe that he believes that there is no global warming,” King said. “I think he’s trying to summon the Trump Republican conservatives.”

If anything, Ramaswamy’s lifelong love of tennis may be the one authentic thing about him. Still, if the sport still contributes to him losing this election, I’m all for it.

Thanks for reading Bounces! This article is free because of public interest around an imminent election, but I appreciate any free or paid subscribers! and Bounces Box #003 is now live! —Ben

To read the whole post, please subscribe to Bounces! —Ben

Read more

But this Sunday in Shanghai and Wuhan, the two tours aligned with finals at the 1000-level that brought some of the parallels from this offbeat seasons on both tours into communion and contrast.

To read up on Maja Chwalinska’s win at WTA 1000 Wuhan and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s Shanghai success—plus an update on the new (and popular, happily) Bounces Box game—please subscribe to Bounces! —Ben

Read more

Read more

Introducing Bounces Box: A Tennis Grid Game!

Play Bounces Box!

You may be familiar with the Immaculate Grid concept from other sports or perhaps its film buff iteration, Cinematrix at Vulture.

The concept of Bounces Box is the same: you guess a tennis player who fits in each square, matching the criteria of both the column and the row.

The way I’ve written the boards, there are possible answers of ATP and WTA players that can fit into each square on the grid. So you could fill the box with all men or all women, but you’ll probably want to do a mix of both.

Play Bounces Box!

There will be a new grid each week. The plan is for the current game to be available for all, but for all past and present Boxes to only be available and playable for paid Bounces subscribers who want to binge the archives.

Subscribe now

Have fun! This is a new venture, so I’m eager for any feedback, happy to answer any questions, and to see how y’all do. Please share your results on social media if you are so inclined to spread the word about the Bounces Box!

Thanks for reading and playing at Bounces! —Ben

Play Bounces Box!

Leave a comment

Sinner, when he played, reeled off a stellar 44-3 record this year, but hasn’t shown up on tour since winning Wimbledon in July. By winning percentage, at 93.6 pecent, it’s the fifth-best season in ATP history—and it’s over.

Not counting the 2020 pandemic stoppage, Sinner will have set the ATP record for longest time without playing a match on tour while holding the No. 1 ranking in ATP history…breaking a record he’d already set himself last year. Ironically, both absences began immediately after he’d just won a major.

What do we know? What don’t we know? What should we know?

To read everything in this deep dive into murky waters, please subscribe to Bounces! —Ben

Read more

To read a deep dive into the rules—or lack thereof—that Medvedev broke, please subscribe to Bounces! —Ben

Read more

It’s October 1, 2026, which means that my bouncing baby Bounces is turning two years old!

Bounces launched two years ago today, and as I reread the launch post, I’m heartened by how this relatively sudden idea I had to start this space has grown into something sturdy and sustainable in a pretty short time.

I’m also proud of how impactful Bounces has proven to be in its first two years. I’ve been able to break a ton of varied news stories here already, which has led to Bounces being cited by major outlets like CNN, The New York Times, L’Équipe, The Guardian, People, Defector, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Variety, Süddeutsche Zeitung, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Aftonbladet, Sports Business Journal, and many more.

Subscribe now

I’m excited for more to come in a third lap around the circuit, and I want your help in making that orbit the best it can be.

Many of the big stories I’ve broken here came because of a tip or lead I received from someone with something to share, who passed it on to me to investigate and corroborate.

I can’t and shouldn’t write about every lead I get, but many of them can prove invaluable.

I know how many people read Bounces who hold influential inside roles within tennis—or have a peripheral but still insightful view. If that could be you, I would love to hear more from you about whatever it is you think I should know, particularly about stories that you think are being missed. These can be big topics or small, uplifting or dispiriting, fun or harrowing.

Thoughout my career, I’ve established a record of doing difficult investigations and protecting anonymity. As I hope Bounces readers know, I’m always eager to tackle the hard topics whenever I can.

So, if you’d like to get in touch, please do! I can be reached in myriad ways: via WhatsApp, email, direct message here, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Signal. I’m always happy to talk off the record or on background, on Zoom or by phone, or in person if we’re in the same part of the world.

Email Ben Rothenberg

Thanks for reading Bounces, and thanks for keeping the stories going here for more years to come! —Ben

Breaking more news here: Bounces can report details of the WTA’s new revamps which are being communicated to players this week at the China Open in Beijing.

These changes were proposed by the WTA’s newly created Tour Architecture Council and have already been approved by the WTA Board to take effect for the 2027 season.

The full slate of overhauls, which Bounces subscribers can read about below, includes a potentially drastic change to the WTA Finals in Charlotte and a new tour-level event for a booming market.

To read it all, please subscribe to Bounces! —Ben

Read more

Those three weeks in New York were a ton of work without much sleep, but the grind was also hugely rewarding in many ways: in terms of new subscribers and growth here, the 2026 U.S. Open was the biggest tournament so far in the nearly two years of Bounces’ existence. I’m very heartened and glad that my work here can keep reaching new people, and thanks again to all of you for helping spread the word about Bounces to your friends and social networks.

Share Bounces

After getting some much-needed rest after what felt like running daily marathons for three weeks—roused briefly by some big WTA news—I’m back to put a bow on an incredibly bountiful U.S. Open.

Honestly, 2026 had felt like a pretty forgettable season in tennis for much of this year—particularly on the men’s side—but this U.S. Open really brought the juice, particularly off-court. The U.S. Open, as you’ll read below, was more of a sensory overload than ever, and this one had a surplus of storylines to go with that.

I wrote a lot here at Bounces, but at times it felt like I was only scratching the surface of this sprawling cross-cultural colossus. So I’m happy to bring back a favorite feature: a post-tournament notebook dump.

Here are all of the topics you’ll get to read about below over the course of roughly 7,000 words of fun:

• Under the Influencers (and other generalizations about unappreciated behaviors by attendees);

• A different buzz: the brief-but-successful guerrilla sex toy operation inside Ashe;

• The Sound: bad acoustics, nonstop chatter, and rights-free music;

• The Taste: green beans, French dips, and Honey Deuces;

• The Sights: bright sun, red lights, and a rearranged Ashe;

• The Smell: weed and sewage!

• The treachery of the boardwalk;

• A different sort of media leak issue;

• The fines list, and who should have been hit harder;

• A pressing issue: on the players who fall through the gaps in the current ranks;

• My minor social media gains;

• The U.S. Open’s riddler is a hero, not a villain;

• How betting broke tennis stars of yore;

• Ads around New York City;

• Major Juniors: the big smile of Marcel Latak;

• Too young for mixed drinks;

• Two men out: the historic all-gay final in Austria;

• Grand Again: Niels Vink keeps history rolling;

• Further U.S. Open reading from lots of great writers;

• A musical ode to Carlos Alcaraz’s nipples.

To read all of that and more, please get yourself a Bounces subscription! Or gift one to a friend and bring them along!

Give a gift subscription

Read more

In an announcement that was embargoed until Wednesday morning, the WTA confirmed this week that Charlotte will host the elite year-end WTA Finals from 2027 to 2029.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, WTA chairwoman Valerie Camillo suggested that the three-year deal could be extended.

To read the rest, please subscribe to Bounces! The U.S. Open sale has ended but it’s always a great time to unlock the year-round coverage here!

Read more

I cannot say I root for Alexander Zverev’s success on any level, but now that he’s won two major titles this year, I’ve seen how his moments in the sun reflect new light onto his past, and thereby illuminate, animate, and agitate the base of tennis fans who still cannot abide moving past the abuse accusations first leveled against him nearly six years ago.

Even after his blanket denials. Even after investigations and court cases with murky resolutions. Even after so much of the tennis world has tried to move on and forget this topic.

15% Off Bounces During US Open

During his second major title run, a particularly large number of the viral videos and posts about Zverev’s past have highlighted my work reporting on his first accuser and the ensuing legal saga—particularly by Ian Lightfoot and Eliza Orlins—so I want to thank the hundreds of new Bounces subscribers who have come on board due to their endorsements and support. (And to the many more people who have followed my fairly anemic Instagram, too.)

15% Off During U.S. Open

Though I don’t normally cover Zverev’s matches, I resolved to attend and cover Sunday’s men’s final because Ben Shelton was playing in it with a chance at history for American men’s tennis, having a chance to end the 23-year drought. Given how closely I’ve covered his career, it didn’t feel fair to him on any level not to show up for this occasion.

Alas, it didn’t go great for him, from the very first game.

To continue reading, please subscribe! The U.S. Open sale here is nearly over! Thanks for your support of Bounces! —Ben

15% Off Bounces During US Open

Read more

To read the rest, please subscribe to Bounces! There’s not much time left on the 15 percent off sale during the U.S. Open, so upgrade while you can! -Ben

15% Off During US Open

Read more

NEW YORK — Some welcome news—or non-news, perhaps—to report here on Bounces.

Unless his itinerary changes drastically, Bounces can report that President Donald Trump will not be attending this weekend’s U.S. Open finals. This will be a relief to nearly everyone involved in any role at the tournament after the headaches his appearance caused during last year’s men’s final.

That was a mess of a day a year ago, both publicly and behind the scenes, with a lingering clean-up effort across various other arenas.

Because of the public interest involved in reporting on Trump, I’m leaving this story unpaywalled, but please consider subscribing to support the work I do here at Bounces!

15% Off During US Open!

Trump’s presence last year, as you may recall, forced the start of the U.S. Open men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner to be delayed by half an hour, from 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Even with that grace period—and a bit more—ticket holders struggled to make it through the enhanced security checkpoints set up outside the stadium by the Secret Service, which were more thorough and rigorous than typical airport security.

Many fans missed significant chunks of the action due to the hassles caused by Trump’s presence; the stadium was still noticeably empty through the first set of the final. Outgoing U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster later said that there were nearly 7,000 fans who could not make it to their seats by the start of the match.

Though there were some calls for refunds, I don’t believe any were ever issued.

15% Off During US Open!

Longtime Bounces subscribers may remember two of the stories I did around Trump’s visit last year, both of which remain among the most-read in the nearly two-year history of Bounces.

The first, which caused the biggest stir, was revealing an internal memo from the U.S. Open requesting that broadcasters “refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the President’s attendance in any capacity.”

Trump ultimately drew mixed reactions from the crowd on the two occasions he was shown on the Ashe video screens (the acoustics in Ashe meant the audio was always muddled in videos, but it was a combination of mostly boos and some cheers, to my ears).

There was a concern during the final, however, that Trump wanted to make his presence even more known, by presenting the trophy to the champion during the trophy ceremony, or perhaps even addressing the crowd in that ceremony. U.S. Tennis Association officials did not know for certain until a few minutes before the match ended, Bounces understands, that Trump had decided against venturing onto the court for the ceremony.

15% Off During US Open!

Speaking of the trophy, that turned into one of the sillier subplots of that afternoon. As you may have seen, tournament officials had put the men’s singles trophy up next to Trump during the final—a complete break from normal protocols. But when it came time for that trophy to be on court, there was an apparent concern that Trump would grow antsy without a shiny object next to him.

A solution was found: the men’s doubles trophy, completely irrelevant to Sunday’s proceedings, was brought up to the Rolex suite to sit next to Trump for the remainder of his stay.

15% Off During US Open!

Trump stayed in the Rolex suite for the entire match, but that was also not without controversy. My initial report about Trump’s U.S. Open visit was to report that he was attending as a guest of the Swiss watchmaker.

The most obvious reason that Rolex would be courting Trump, as I reported in that initial Bounces dispatch, was to lobby him to lower the high tariffs on Switzerland, which were 39 percent at the time.

Though we’ve grown numb to it in Trump’s time, this would appear to be favor-seeking that would’ve rarely happened so overtly in previous eras. A few weeks after the U.S. Open final, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter of inquiry to Rolex chief executive Jean-Frederic Dufour.

“Given the President’s record of doling out special treatment to CEOs who are able to woo him with flattery, payoffs, or both, the timing of his attendance at the match in the Rolex box is concerning,” Warren wrote. “I have questions about whether you are attempting to curry favor with the President in an effort to secure special-interest exemptions for Rolex products.”

You can read Warren’s full letter to Rolex here:

Warren Letter To Rolex On Us Open Trump Invite

277KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Dufour responded quickly to Warren, and insisted there had been no substantive policy talks in the Rolex suite, but did describe Trump mentioning the obvious elephant in the room thusly:

“President Trump, never one to miss a rhetorical opportunity, did ask in jest whether he would have been invited had it not been for the tariffs—a moment that brought a round of laughter all around and, as you can imagine, a swift return of attention to the unfolding excitement on court.”

15% Off During US Open!

In a later financial disclosure, the 10 tickets to the Rolex suite were valued at $25,000.

The Swiss lobby kept at it after the tennis tour had moved on. In November, Swiss billionaires gifted Trump a gold Rolex desk clock and an engraved gold bar worth $130,000; soon, Trump slashed tariffs on Switzerland from 39 percent to 15 percent. Swiss lawmakers asked prosecutors in their country to investigate whether the gifts violated anti-bribery laws.

Aside from the headaches for the U.S. Open attendees, there was also a significant cost to taxpayers for Trump’s visit for his transportation and security. Though I have not found a U.S. Open-specific figure for how much that excursion might’ve cost, for context, according to Front Office Sports the Secret Service “expensed nearly $800,000 for the first four major sporting events Trump attended in his second term” (which did not include the U.S. Open).

Trump’s frequent attendance at major sporting events, always disruptive to the event to varying degrees, has been a hallmark of his second term. Through about 20 months in office, Trump has attended about 20 major sporting events, including Super Bowl LIX, four UFC fights, the NBA Finals, and the 2026 World Cup final, where he did present the trophy.

15% Off During US Open!

One of Trump’s most common sports travel ventures has been to visit his own golf clubs when they are hosting tournaments. That’s actually, perhaps, the reason why he’s not in New York this time: he’s instead attending the Amgen Irish Open, a men’s golf tournament on the European Tour which is being held at the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Ireland. That trip could include a meeting with Ireland’s president, Catherine Connolly, who has been a staunch critic of Trump’s.

Whatever reception he gets in Ireland—a country where Trump is widely unpopular—is yet to be seen. But at least, I guess, this time he won’t delay a tennis match.

Thanks for reading Bounces! -Ben

Leave a comment

Give a gift subscription

Subscribe now

15% Off During U.S. Open

Read more

NEW YORK — U.S. Open crowds seem fond of Jessica Pegula, to be sure, but they treat Coco Gauff like she’s their own daughter.

To read the rest of this dispatch on the U.S. Open women’s semifinals, please subscribe to Bounces! The 15-percent-off sale during the U.S. Open only lasts for a few more days, so don’t delay!

Read more

While the men’s matches were duds this time, the women’s quarterfinals were momentous and full of the momentum swings that defined the matches from a day earlier.

15% Off During US Open!

Elena Rybakina came out for the midday match—her first time playing this early during the tournament—and became bothered by the stark shadows on Ashe, among other annoyances.

Zheng Qinwen left the court after winning the first set—somewhat unusually, as the player in the lead—which allowed the normally poker-faced Rybakina time to vent at her coach Stefano Vukov, blowing off some steam.

“I was quite negative and didn’t start well in the first set,” Rybakina said later. “I would say that I came and I was just letting the emotions out a bit, telling everything what was on my mind. He just kept me focused and tried to tell for me to remember what we talked before the match, what I should do.”

Rybakina, as is typical, showed fewer emotions once Zheng returned to the court.

“I’m trying to hide it, because yeah, you just don’t want to let the opponent also see your frustration when something is going wrong,” Rybakina said.

Rybakina won the second set quickly but the third was a battle, level at 4-4 before Rybakina secured a late break and consolidated it for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory.

The triumph was, as is typical with Rybakina, also understated on visible emotion, but she was smiling significantly more than usual as she made her post-match press rounds.

15% Off During US Open!

Rybakina needed that win, likely, to secure the No. 1 ranking to which she will ascend on Monday; if she had lost, she would’ve needed Zheng Qinwen to win the title, or else the U.S. Open’s eventual champion would’ve taken the top spot.

The fourth quarterfinal was a scrappy one. Coco Gauff, known for her ability to win gritty matches, really brawled with Mirra Andreeva. Both players were well into the negative on their winners-to-unforced errors ratios, but Gauff never blinked, even when staring at two Andreeva match points.

The result is an elite semifinal lineup for Thursday evening: No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka vs. No. 3 Jessica Pegula and No. 4 Coco Gauff vs. No. 2 Elena Rybakina. It’s the first time the top four seeds have reached the U.S. Open women’s singles semifinals since 1975.

The maximally chalk line-up makes sense. There are no major semifinalist debutants in this year’s crop, on either the men’s or women’s side, which is in keeping with recent patterns. This year’s French Open really stands out as a disruptive tournament, results-wise; otherwise, as my chart on first-time major semifinalists shows, there haven’t been many in the last couple of years.

15% Off During US Open!

Rybakina is a first-time semifinalist, though, at the U.S. Open; let’s pivot to a guy who is into the Final Four here for a third time.

Frances Tiafoe has reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open three times, in 2022, 2024, and 2026. But this time, like Rybakina, his run will be rewarded with a new career-high ranking.

Tiafoe, who was in the Top 10 at No. 10 for a cup of coffee in the summer of 2023, will be up to at least No. 8 in Monday’s rankings, and could further climb to No. 6 by reaching the final or No. 4 by winning the title. He’s in good shape to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin for the first time, too, at No. 6 in the live race with a couple of months to go.

“I think I’ve been so routine-oriented all year, just continuously on a routine,” Tiafoe said after his quarterfinal win, when I asked him how he’d approach the endgame of this tournament. “Ideally you want to make every day feel the same. Again, winning becomes a habit, so just kind of approach it for what it is.”

15% Off During US Open!

All of this was augured in a Bounces story that may have aged better than any other: my pre-Australian Open feature on Tiafoe and the transformation he’d made in the off-season after tough come-to-Jesus talks with his girlfriend, Ayan Broomfield, and his agents.

From January:

“Immediately after the U.S. Open I had a very serious conversation with my girlfriend and my two agents,” Tiafoe said. “It’s one of those things where you’re not really even saying anything; you’re just getting cooked and you’ve kind of got to take it. And don’t argue it, don’t try to fight it—that’s kind of what it was.”

The words were simple and blunt.

“It was very thorough and for a kid to understand—let’s just put it that way,” Tiafoe said. “It was like: you’re either doing it or you’re not, right? Let’s stop making excuses, stop doing this and that. You’re either doing it or you’re not—and it definitely hit home. Hence why I just kind of went dark: trying to figure out what that looked like. Now I’ve got a bunch of clarity and feel ready to go.”

The other big element of that story was Tiafoe making a bold hire: Dr. Mark Kovacs, who had worked in tennis as a performance physiologist and biomechanics researcher, but had never been a lead coach for a top player before.

After Tiafoe’s win, I caught up with Kovacs in the corridor outside the men’s locker room in Ashe, and we chatted about the key things Tiafoe has done throughout the year to make it such a success.

To read the interview—and get everything else here during the U.S. Open and beyond—please subscribe to Bounces! It’s still 15 percent off during the U.S. Open, but that time is running out! —Ben

15% Off During US Open!

Give a gift subscription

Read more

For bleary thoughts on a record-setting day and night in New York, with Ben Shelton beating Carlos Alcaraz, Jessica Pegula beating Emma Navarro, Frances Tiafoe beating Alex Michelsen, and Aryna Sabalenka beating Linda Noskova—and a call to action to make the obvious fix to repair this absurd situation—please subscribe to Bounces!

It’s still 15 percent off here for a few more days, until the end of the U.S. Open! About to hit a big milestone in subscriber numbers, so I hope more folks can join! —Ben

15% Off During US Open!

Give a gift subscription

Read more

If she can beat Zheng Qinwen in her quarterfinal match on Wednesday, Rybakina will become the 30th player to hold the No. 1 singles ranking in WTA history, and only the fourth player in the last seven years after Ash Barty, Iga Swiatek, and Aryna Sabalenka.

15% Off During US Open!

But though Rybakina’s rankings quest is a big plotline for the rest of this U.S. Open, I was more intrigued by Osaka’s loss, a result which ensured that one of the most stubborn records across men’s and women’s tennis, nearly a half-century old, will persist into 2027.

To read about this barrier which major champions are consistently hitting up against, please subscribe to Bounces! There’s only a week left in the 15 percent off deal during the U.S. Open, so don’t delay! —Ben

15% Off During US Open!

Give a gift subscription

Read more

After Taylor Townsend lost the day’s opening match to top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, the wins started rolling in: Alex Michelsen, Frances Tiafoe, Jessica Pegula, Ben Shelton, and Emma Navarro all advanced to the quarterfinals. And at least one will make the semifinals: Michelsen, the lone debut major quarterfinalist in the bunch, will face Tiafoe on Tuesday for a spot in the Final Four.

But the most memorable moment for me might have been from the day’s seventh American in action, Tommy Paul, who came into the press room after losing in a state of sardonic shell shock that echoed the way Andy Roddick used to talk after his losses to Roger Federer.

15% Off During US Open!

Not because Tommy Paul played badly—he didn’t whatsoever.

But Carlos Alcaraz had just been that damn good, and asserted himself as the prohibitive favorite for a U.S. Open that had once felt wide open.

To read up on Carlos Alcaraz announcing himself as the clear U.S. Open favorite—plus a look ahead at matches to watch on Monday’s Labor Day slate—subscribe to Bounces! Still 15 percent off during the U.S. Open, but that’ll only last for one more week! —Ben

15% Off During US Open!

Give a gift subscription

Read more