United States Open (tennis)

United States Open (tennis), important tennis tournament held annually in Flushing Meadows, New York City. The event ranks as one of the four prestigious competitions in tennis, along with the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon tournaments. The four events are known as grand slams, and any player who wins all four in a single year is said to have won “the grand slam”—a rare feat. The tournament takes place every year in late August and early September and is played on hard courts (although it was held on grass courts until 1975).

The United States Championship was first held for men’s singles and doubles in 1881 at the Casino in Newport, Rhode Island. Women’s play began in 1887 at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Pennsylvania. The two sides were contested separately at a variety of sites until 1935, when men’s and women’s singles were both played at the same time in Forest Hills, New York (the doubles competitions were held mostly in Boston, Massachusetts, until the late 1960s).

As in the other grand slam events, professional players were barred from participation until the late 1960s. The first U.S. Open for both amateurs and professionals was held in 1968, the same year all five major categories of competition—men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles—came together in Forest Hills. The event was played on clay courts from 1975 to 1977. In 1978 the tournament moved to its present site at the National Tennis Center in the Queens borough of New York City and switched to hard courts. In 2006 the United States Tennis Association (USTA) renamed the facility the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in honor of King’s contributions to the sport (see Billie Jean King). King won the U.S. Open singles title four times and the doubles title five times, but she is remembered more for winning equal treatment for women in sports.

Three American men have won seven singles titles at the U.S. Open—Richard Sears, who won seven straight during the 1880s; William Larned, from 1901 to 1911; and Bill Tilden, during the 1920s. Jimmy Connors of the United States won the title five times from 1974 to 1983 and Pete Sampras five times from 1990 to 2002. American Molla Bjurstedt Mallory won the women’s singles title eight times from 1915 to 1926, while Chris Evert of the United States won it six times from 1975 to 1982.