Why Donald Trump is Returning to the U.S. Open
A decade after he was booed out of the U.S. Open, Bounces can report who invited Trump back courtside for Sunday's men's final.
NEW YORK — With both men winning on Friday, the third consecutive major final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz is now booked for the U.S. Open.
The tournament is already trembling not just with anticipation for Sunday’s match itself, but because of the vibrations caused by the approaching elephant-in-the-room for the occasion: U.S. President Donald Trump, who will be making his first appearance to the tournament in more than a decade.
Trump, 79, had been a fixture at the tournament for decades like many other New York socialites. But after years of consistent visits to Arthur Ashe Stadium, he has not gone to the U.S. Open since attending a 2015 quarterfinal match between Venus and Serena Williams. That was his first appearance since he’d entered the 2016 presidential race on an anti-immigrant platform, and he was resoundingly booed by the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
I first heard whispers about Trump’s planned return visit to the 2025 U.S. Open on Wednesday of this week; journalist Marisa Kabas confirmed those whispers on Thursday.
What I can add here at Bounces is new, breaking reporting about who is bringing Trump back to the U.S. Open after all these years.
After corroborating with several sources, Bounces can report that Trump will be attending the U.S. Open men’s final not at the behest of the tournament itself, but as an invited guest of Rolex, the luxury Swiss watchmaker which has a large suite inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Rolex has been an increasingly ubiquitous sponsor of major tennis tournaments, and has also sponsored a number of top tennis stars—including Sinner, Alcaraz, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek—who appear in Rolex commercials which air frequently during U.S. Open television coverage.
Rolex’s motive in bringing Trump to the U.S. Open? I have not yet heard back from Rolex—and will update this story if and when I do hear back from them—but I do have an initial theory of the case: I would not be surprised if Rolex has made this unusual gesture because they have a vested interest in getting Trump’s ear to lobby the famously persuadable president about lowering the exceptionally high 39 percent tariff on Switzerland, where Rolex is based.
While Rolex’s intentions are not yet fully known, Rolex’s invitation to Trump is certain to cause considerable headaches for attendees of Sunday’s final. On Friday evening, the U.S. Open emailed credentialed media about “enhanced security measures” to expect on Sunday; many of these additional screenings will presumably affect all 22,000+ attendees on Sunday.
Both men’s finalists were asked about Trump’s attendance after their semifinal wins. Neither commented on Trump or his particular politics, but rather talked about the status symbol of having a U.S. President at a tennis match.
“It is a privilege for the tournaments having the president from every country just to support the tournament, to support tennis, and to support the match,” Alcaraz said. “For me, playing in front of him... so, to be honest, I will try not to be focused [on Trump], and I will try not to think about it. I don't want myself to be nervous because of it. But I think, you know, [his] attending the tennis match, it's great for tennis to have the president into the final.”
Sinner was only asked about Trump’s attendance by Italian media, and responded something similar about a president’s attendance reflecting well on the importance of tennis. (I will add a fuller translation of the quote when it becomes available.)
Donald Trump’s History at the U.S. Open
Trump, a New York socialite for decades before his turn toward presidential politics, would have almost certainly continued attending the Open regularly were it not for how vocally he was booed during that 2015 quarterfinal. While other celebrities at the match—including Oprah Winfrey, Kendrick Lamar, Alan Cumming and Aziz Ansari—received raucous applause, Trump was booed at deafening levels.1 I still remember sitting in the lower bowl and seeing a man who was jogging up the aisle during a changeover stop in his tracks so he could stand and join the booing as Trump was shown on screen.
Before the fans in New York made clear Trump that was no longer welcome among them, he had been a favorite for flashbulbs at the event: Getty Images has photos of Trump at the U.S. Open in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014; the number of photos of him had declined in those last few years as his media profile diminished before his presidential run.
He was hardly an unwelcome guest in tennis circles in those days; tennis governing bodies were often eager to glom onto Trump’s penchant for attention for their own promotion, particularly the WTA.
In 1989, Trump was invited to the WTA’s year-end awards banquet, where he presented Steffi Graf with her Player of the Year trophy.
Here’s a passage about Trump and Monica Seles from some of my earlier reporting on Trump’s history in tennis:
When Monica Seles dropped out of Wimbledon in 1991 without explanation after having won the Australian Open and French Open to start the year, rumors swirled that the 17-year-old was hiding out at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. “He just thinks Monica’s a nice girl, and he admires her tennis skills,” a source was quoted as telling The New York Post, which afforded rapt coverage to anything to do with Trump and women. When Seles returned to the tour and won the US Open two months later, she singled out Trump for gratitude in helping her to her third Grand Slam title of the year. “[Trump] was, really, the one person that kind of always said the whole two weeks that I can do it,” Seles told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Seles-Trump union proved unpopular; nearly all news reports on Seles winning the 1991 US Open included criticism of her affinity for Trump. Said The Los Angeles Times: “About the only thing Seles did wrong was to thank Donald Trump in her speech during the awards ceremony. She was booed loudly.”
Off court, Seles succeeded Trump’s then fiancée Marla Maples as a spokesmodel for No Excuses jeans, a brand that developed a strategy of spotlight-seeking by weaponizing scandalized women, from Donna Rice (amid Gary Hart infamy) to Paula Jones (amid Bill Clinton infamy). Seles, who was a considerably less tawdry figure, nonetheless starred in a bizarre commercial for the brand that ended with her teasingly saying, “I’m not going to Disney World,” before giggling and speeding away in a limousine with the New York license plate TRUMP.
In 1999, Trump signed on as the manager of a highly-hyped 14-year-old player Monique Viele, a saga I told in depth in the eBook Making Monique.
In 2012, even after Trump had already begun his xenophobic “birther” claims about Barack Obama, the WTA enlisted Trump to record a video for its “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign.
Last year during his hush money trial, Trump listed Serena Williams as one of his frequent contacts. When asked about being included on that list during an interview with The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast, Serena responded with considerable umbrage—not toward Trump, but toward the interviewer.
“I mean, is this what this interview is about? Really?” replied Serena, who was there to promote her In the Arena docuseries. “I talk to a lot of presidents, so…”
Few active tennis players have expressed strong opinions about Trump, but Coco Gauff did make reference to his 2024 election when she answered a question after winning the French Open in June about what it had felt like to hear the Star-Spangled Banner during the trophy ceremony:
It means a lot. Obviously there's a lot going on in our country right now with things, like—everything, yeah. (Smiling.) Yeah, I'm sure you guys know.
But just to be able to be a representation of that and a representation of, I guess, people that look like me in America who maybe don't feel as supported during this time period, just being that reflection of hope and light for those people.
I remember after the election and everything, it kind of felt down period a little bit and things like that. My mom told me during Riyadh [the WTA Finals last November]: ‘Just try to win the tournament just to give something for people to smile for.’ So that's what I was thinking about today when holding that [trophy].
And then seeing the flags in the crowd means a lot. You know, some people may feel some type of way about being patriotic and things like that, but I'm definitely patriotic and proud to be American. And I'm proud to represent the Americans that look like me and people who kind of support the things that I support.
Thank you for reading Bounces! To stay up to date on tennis news and to support the journalism I do around the sport, I hope you can subscribe! -Ben
The only other celebrity I remember getting booed loudly that night? Kim Kardashian.
Great scoop about Rolex, and the angle of Switzerland and tariffs is certainly a plausible one! Good luck this weekend.
Sadly I don't think he will be booed as much this time