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.

The 15 Best Tennis Scenes in Movies. We’d vote for The Baumer’s iconic meltdown in The Royal Tenenbaums and the hilarious, chaotic doubles scene in Bridesmaids!

This adorable US Open doubles print would make the perfect gift for tennis friends (or yourself!). Available for purchase from the artist here.

💘Trinity Rodman supporting boyfriend Ben Shelton is pure joy.

🕵️‍♀️TRIVIA ANSWER: The US Open paid men and women equal prize money in 1973, the same year Billie Jean King founded the Women’s Tennis Association and defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes exhibition match. In 1973, singles champions John Newcombe and Margaret Court (both Australian!) each received $25,000. In 2026, the singles winners will receive $5.5M each.