While working on the Bounces story earlier this week about the U.S. Open’s Kalshi partnership and the general casino-fication of tennis, Bounces learned about another betting company-related story around this year’s U.S. Open that has caught the attention of tennis integrity officials.
On the Thursday before U.S. Open main draw singles play began, many of the tournament’s biggest names appeared at a pre-tournament party at Crane Club in Manhattan’s West Side, a constellation of tennis stars that outshone any other pre-tournament event. Serena Williams, Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Taylor Fritz, and more all showed up.
The party was fronted by Dave Grutman, a well-connected Miami nightlife impresario who has cozied up to many star tennis players, hooking them up with various perks while they’re in Miami and beyond.
Followers of tennis players’ social media accounts have likely seen Grutman, particularly each March around the Miami Open. He’s gained a reputation as a fixer to the stars, helping turn South Florida into even more of a flashy playground for wealthy celebrities.
“After stepping into his world over the past year on a handful of visits to his gold-plated, bottle-popping playground, Miami, Florida, ‘larger than life’ just doesn’t seem to cut it,” GQ wrote of Grutman in a 2021 profile.
Though Grutman traffics in all flavors of bougie bacchanalia, he has a particular predilection for tennis.
From a 2023 profile in Avenue:
“I try to get out here every day of the week. I’m obsessed,” says Grutman, standing on the baseline of a private court in Miami Beach’s Sunset Islands, where he practices. He calls it the “Terrordome,” and it has just been upgraded with Prince-branded windscreens. (In addition to his hospitality work, Grutman is also the co-owner and creative director of the celebrated athletics brand.) “It helps me clear my head for the rest of the day and night, and I like that it’s a form of exercise that has a certain level of competition.” Even at casual 8am sessions, he tends to go big: Grutman brings high-profile guests such as tour players Genie Bouchard and Reilly Opelka, and regularly hits with the famed coach Jimmy Bollettieri. At his vacation home at Amanyara in Turks and Caicos, Grutman is known to book all the pros, both courts, and invite people to train with him. When he hits an especially good shot — most often on the forehand side — he says, “Buh-bye.”
Merely hanging out with Grutman isn’t the issue that has concerned tennis integrity authorities, however. The problem was that his pre-U.S. Open dinner party was very clearly held on behalf of the American betting company DraftKings, which is one of the prominently listed “Partners” of Grutman’s on his website.
“Hosting @draftkings Welcome Players Party is my Favorite!!!” Grutman wrote in the Instagram caption of a carousel of himself posing with many of the biggest names in tennis.
Many—Aryna Sabalenka, Serena Williams, Grigor Dimitrov, Coco Gauff, Mirra Andreeva, Eva Lys—posed with Grutman in front of a wall of DraftKings logos.
This was the DraftKings party, after all, as it was called in both Grutman’s posts and coverage from outlets like Page Six.
Other attendees who are starring in this year’s U.S. Open included Taylor Fritz, Matteo Berrettini, Alexandra Eala, Anna Kalinskaya, and Elena-Gabriela Ruse. Former players Caroline Wozniacki and Chris Eubanks, who are covering the U.S. Open for ESPN, also attended.
Grutman’s representatives have not yet responded to messages seeking comment at time of publication.
“It was a good one,” Anna Kalinskaya told Bounces of the party. “It was a dinner with a lot of people from tennis…the food was great. They had fish, they had steak. It was nice.”
Kalinskaya, who is not one of the players who posed directly in front of the logo wall in photos I’ve seen, told me she did not know DraftKings sponsored the event.
“I just went to catch up with my friends,” Kalinskaya said.
After photographs from the party began circulating, Bounces can report that the event was flagged to integrity authorities by multiple whistleblowers within the sport, catching their attention and prompting further investigation.
“We are aware of this event, and we are looking into the circumstances and details,” an International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Bounces.
There is gray area here, perhaps. From my conversations with agents and players involved in the event, it is my understanding that these players were not paid to appear at the DraftKings event—unlike many appearances during the pre-U.S. Open circuit which are directly compensated—but attended out of loyalty and attraction to Grutman.
Still, their arranged appearances at a promotional event for a company that offers tennis betting could violate anti-corruption rules, and earn them discreet warnings from the ITIA to be careful about their appearances of affiliation with betting brands.
Even if the players were not directly compensated by DraftKings for appearing at its party, the appearances and photo-ops may have run afoul of Tennis Anti-Corruption rules, including:
D.1.b: “No Covered Person shall, directly or indirectly, facilitate, encourage and/or promote Tennis Betting”;
and D.1.q: “No Covered Person, whether personally or via another arrangement or legal entity, may endorse, be employed, sponsored and/or otherwise engaged by a Tennis Betting Operator.”
Incidents of these sorts of rule violations—such as appearing for an interview on a sponsored betting-themed podcast—often trigger private warnings to players and other tennis people covered by tennis anti-corruption rules.
Most often, it is former players who still work in tennis who have been penalized for breaking these rules when direct compensation was involved. Particularly, former American players James Blake, Mardy Fish, and Bob Bryan have all been penalized for being paid to promote gambling companies. All three were slapped with five-figure fines.
There is, of course, thick irony here: while these optics could earn them a warning, all of these tennis players are now forced to appear in front of Kalshi logos—which began appearing around the perimeters of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center’s courts this week—by virtue of competing in the 2026 U.S. Open.
But as I mentioned in that story, the rules are much stricter around what players can do in terms of actual or apparent connections to betting companies. Tournaments and tours, meanwhile, are currently allowed to cash in and sell out.
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