A US Open official was arrested for allegedly murdering her husband — with a coffee cup! Lois Goodman, a line judge in her 70s, was preparing to work the 2012 US Open when she was arrested and charged with bludgeoning her husband of 50 years to death with a coffee cup. The charges were dropped after she passed a polygraph and prosecutors found no DNA evidence linking her to the crime. She returned to Flushing Meadows the very next summer to officiate again.

For its first 40 years, the "US Open" wasn't one tournament — it was two, played in different cities, on different dates, starting six years apart. The men's championship began in 1881, when 19-year-old Harvard student Richard Sears beat William Glyn at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. The women’s tournament began in 1887, at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, and was won by 17-year-old Ellen Hansell, wearing a full skirt and long sleeves. The women's event stayed in Philadelphia until 1921, when it finally moved to Forest Hills, New York, joining the men in the same city (in a twist, the men's tournament was itself temporarily displaced to Philadelphia that same year, while the new Forest Hills stadium was being finished). It wasn’t until 1968 that all five championship events—men’s and women’s singles and doubles, plus mixed doubles—finally shared one stadium and became one unified tournament.

In 2006, a banana nearly became a Grand Slam scandal. During Maria Sharapova's 2006 US Open final win, her father was spotted holding up a banana in the stands. He explained later that it was a reminder to his daughter to eat between sets; the conspiracy theory was that it was a coded, illegal coaching signal. Sharapova's blunt response afterward: "My life is not about a banana. I've just won a Grand Slam. The last thing I'm going to want to talk about is a banana, alright?"

A sitting U.S. president attending the US Open is rare: it has only happened twice. President Trump's 2025 Men's Final visit made him only the second sitting president to attend, after Bill Clinton in 2000.

The US Open was the first Grand Slam to introduce the tiebreak. In 1970, the tournament introduced the tiebreak system specifically to prevent matches from running endlessly. Every other major tournament in tennis later adopted some version of the same fix.

Belgian player Kim Clijsters became the first wild-card, unseeded player ever to win the US Open singles title. In 2009, in just her third tournament back from retirement after having her first child, Jada, Clijsters defeated Caroline Wozniacki in the finals. Along the way, she beat world No. 1 Serena Williams in the semifinals. After going on to win the Australian Open in 2011, Clijsters became the first mother to be ranked world Number 1.

In 2026, 1,500 people applied to work on the Ball Crew at the US Open. Just over 300 made the cut. Aspiring crew members must be over 14 and are advised to practice bowling to perfect the “roll,” increase their cardio, and play hand-eye coordination games like juggling and balloon toss!

Tracy Austin remains the youngest US Open singles champion ever, winning in 1979 at 16 years, 8 months, 28 days old. While several 16-year-old women have won the title (Austin, Martina Hingis in 1997, and Maureen Connolly in 1951), the youngest man to ever win a singles title was Pete Sampras, in 1990 at 19 years and 28 days old. Carlos Alcaraz was also 19, 4 months, 5 days, when he won the title in 2022.

During its history, the US Open has been played on three surfaces: grass, clay, and hard. Jimmy Connors is the only player to have won singles titles on each surface. In 1974, he defeated Ken Rosewall on grass. In 1976, Connors defeated Bjorn Borg on clay, then went on to win 3 times on hard court: in 1978, he defeated Bjorn Borg (again); in 1982 he defeated Ivan Lendl, then beat Lendl again in 1983 to win his 5th and final US Open championship.

Arthur Ashe Stadium is the largest tennis-specific stadium in the world, seating 23,933 spectators. It’s named after Arthur Ashe, the first men’s US Open champion of the open era, and the first Black man to capture the title. The stadium’s retractable roof was completed in 2016, cost $150 million, uses 6,500 tons of steel, and closes in less than seven minutes. The "hole" filled with blue sky when the roof is open is larger than a football field: 22 tennis courts could fit within it.

Serena Williams holds the record for match wins at the US Open, men or women, with 108. Next is Chris Evert, with 101 wins, then Jimmy Connors, with 98, closely followed by Novak Djokovic with 95.

In 2025, the US Open drew a record 1,144,562 fans, the first tournament ever to top one million fans in consecutive years (also done in 2024). Attendance has grown for the past four consecutive years.