There have been positively some notable outfit and accent selections in final 12 months’s play, too (see: Jessica Pegula’s armpit cutouts, Sloane Stephens’s delicate diamond necklace, or Marta Kostyuk’s neon-yellow costume), however Naomi Osaka’s enormous “Brat”-green bows emerged because the undisputed champion. Going into the primary spherical of the 2024 Open, Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion (and two-time US Open winner), confirmed as much as play Jelena Ostapenko sporting a bow-covered bomber jacket, frilly inexperienced skirt, and matching tennis costume—a custom-made, cottage-core-y collab between Nike and the Japanese designer Yoon Ahn. Even her headphones, sneakers, and tennis bag had been adorned, too.
When requested concerning the distinctive look in her post-match interview, Osaka described it as “maximalist” and stated it was impressed by Harajuku type. Within the second spherical of the event (which resulted in a loss to Karolina Muchova), she debuted a black model of the identical getup. Chatting with The New York Instances, she defined that dressing up helps increase her psychological well being. “Once I put on what I really feel is an effective outfit, I positively really feel extra snug,” she stated.
Sarah Stier/Getty Photographs
Ronald Martinez/Getty Photographs
6. The place do the opponents—specifically girls in skirts—put their tennis balls throughout play?
Talking of tennis skirts, when you’ve ever donned one earlier than, you most likely already know the reply: There are discreet little pockets in most clothes that may maintain a number of balls. Nonetheless, as SELF’s health director, Christa Sgobba, has complained up to now, “Our tennis uniforms in highschool did not have pockets!” (So protected to say it’s not a common requirement!)
7. So why is Wimbledon’s costume code so freaking strict?!
Get able to roll your eyes up to now again into your head that they turn into completely lodged there. In an interview with BBC Tradition from 2023, Robert Lake, creator of A Social Historical past of Tennis in Britain, stated this: “White hides sweat one of the best, appears clear, sharp, and tidy, representing goodness (aesthetically) and, given cricket connections, additionally displays upper-middle-class leisure traditionally.” (BRB, making a psychological observe to observe this 12 months’s Open sporting my tackiest, most colourful Spandex outfit in a foam Statue of Liberty hat with Cowboy Carter streaming within the background.)
8. Do US Open opponents win prize cash?
Whereas the 2024 Open boasted the most important money allotment for gamers in event historical past ($75 million, a 15% improve from 2023), the 2025 occasion units the bar even larger: $90 million. The lads’s and ladies’s singles champs will obtain $5 million apiece, a rise of just about $1.5 million from final 12 months’s $3.6 mil. In response to Brendan McIntyre, the senior director of company communications for the US Open, all 4 Grand Slam occasions supply equal prize cash for women and men. Nonetheless, the US Open was the primary to make that decision (thanks in no small half to the efforts of tennis legend Billie Jean King and different activists), all the way in which again in 1973.
But it surely’s not simply the victors who take residence a test: Second-place winners earn $2.5 million, semifinalists earn $1.26 million, quarterfinalists earn $660,000, and so forth. Even athletes who lose within the first spherical get just a little (or not-so-little) one thing: $110,000. (Not unhealthy!)
9. Do followers must be quiet throughout US Open matches?
The Open’s extra informal look compared to different huge tennis tourneys is mirrored in its total angle, too—the Arthur Ashe Stadium will get famously rowdy. “It is the loudest and doubtless essentially the most humid circumstances of all heart courts of all 4 Grand Slams,” Novak Djokovic advised reporters throughout a press convention in 2023. That 12 months, the Open welcomed 957,387 followers again for the 20-day occasion, an 8% improve in attendance from 2022—and people folks prefer to get together, usually to the gamers’ frustration. On the 2022 event, Australian Nick Kyrgios claimed {that a} spectator smoking weed induced his bronchial asthma signs to kick in.
