Donald Trump was far from the cozy confines of the UFC octagon. The howling approval that greets him in the country’s college football enclaves had been replaced by something far less welcoming.
On Sunday, Trump entered a familiar but less-hospitable sporting arena, returning to the US Open for the first time in a decade to take in the men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Trump’s presence was felt even before the first serve, with the scheduled 2:00 local start time pushed back a half-hour to accommodate the intensified security presence. As spectators took their seats inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Trump mingled in his center-court suite, where the US Open trophy was prominently displayed. When he briefly appeared before the half-empty venue, the president was greeted with a mix of whistles, for better and worse, and boos.
During the pre-match national anthem, Trump stood saluting alongside Rolex CEO Jean-Frederic Dufour, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as wife Melania Trump, granddaughter Arabella Kushner and son-in law Jared Kushner. When he appeared on the video boards midway through the rendition, a mix of loud boos and cheers echoed inside the cavernous stadium.
There was reason to believe the reception would be even worse. After all, Trump was booed loudly the last time he attended the Open in 2015, when he was a still-largely dismissed candidate. Now a second-term president, Trump’s standing among Open-goers, not unlike the electorate, has improved in the intervening years.
Tennis’ final major of the year –– a magnet for New York’s power centers of business, media and entertainment –– is the type of A-list, culturally liberal gathering that Trump used to frequent. He was a regular at the Open for years, before he started wearing red baseball caps.
Now, with much of the celebrity and entertainment world still at odds with Trump, the tournament represents a bastion of Trump’s pre-MAGA era. (A Fox News headline over the weekend summed up the dynamic: “Left-leaning Hollywood elite flock to US Open with Trump set to attend men’s final.”) One recent poll found that, although sports fans generally lean right, tennis fans tilt liberal.
The scene at Arthur Ashe last Sunday suggested that Trump was entering the lion’s den. On that afternoon, fans showered the embattled late night host and Trump scourge Stephen Colbert with a rapturous ovation.
During changeovers at Ashe, luminaries seated in courtside boxes and luxury suites are shown on the video boards inside the stadium; unlike Trump, most are received warmly. Shonda Rimes, Jon Bon Jovi, Hugh Jackman and newly enshrined baseball hall of famer CC Sabathia each drew applause commensurate with their stature and public standing.
But there was something extra in the ovation for Colbert, who is in his final season as host of The Late Show after CBS announced in July that it will be canceling the program. The network insists the decision is purely a financial one, but to many –– including, presumably, fans at the US Open that day –– it seemed politically motivated, with Colbert serving as a sacrificial lamb in order to secure a merger between Skydance and Paramount, which have formed CBS’s new parent company. (The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger a week after CBS said it is pulling the plug on The Late Show.)
The acclaim for Colbert at the Open last week felt more like an expression of solidarity than simply an assertion of fandom. It was the ideological inverse to the hero’s welcome Trump received at a UFC event in New Jersey in 2024, two days after he was convicted of 34 felony counts.
UFC, of course, is a pillar of the ubermasculine culture that Trump has exploited to tremendous political effect. He has drawn from a similar well of support within the frat boy world of college football. Those sports –– favored by Trump-friendly personalities such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Dave Portnoy –– have become central components of the MAGA brand. The Open, on the other hand, represents a link to a time before Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, when he was more identified with The Apprentice than politics and still mostly embraced by the Hollywood set.
A source told me the United States Tennis Association, the organization that runs the US Open, learned earlier this week that Trump could potentially attend, a development that upended the tournament’s normal course of operations. As of Saturday, according to the source, the USTA still wasn’t sure what Trump’s plans were for the post-match trophy presentation. Following the final match of the FIFA Club World Cup in July, Trump surprised members of the winning Chelsea FC squad by remaining on the dais during the trophy presentation.
Fans and credentialed guests on Sunday were subject to long lines through Secret Service-run security checks, which also limited mobility throughout Arthur Ashe. Making matters worse, the sublime weather that typified this year’s Open experience gave way to soggy conditions this weekend, forcing organizers to close the stadium’s roof for both the women’s final on Saturday and the showdown between Alcaraz and Sinner.
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But entering Sunday’s match, there was a question of how Trump’s presence might affect the viewing experience for those watching at home. The USTA circulated a memo, first reported by the tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, ahead of the final asking “all broadcasters to refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the President’s attendance in any capacity.” A spokesman for the USTA said the guidance was business as usual.
“We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions,” he said.
Trump’s schedule during his first seven months back in office have doubled as a sports fan’s bucket list. Earlier this year, he became the first president to attend the Super Bowl, and he was on hand for the Daytona 500 the following week. In March, Trump traveled to Philadelphia for the NCAA wrestling championships. And last month, the president announced that he will attend the Ryder Cup at “the invite of the PGA Tour.”
Maggie Zakkak, a cosmetic chemist from Philadelphia, lamented that politics would seep into Sunday’s match between Alcaraz and Sinner, the third US Open final she’s attended.
“I just think with the state of our country, I would much rather be able to overlook that for one day,” Zakkak told me as she prepared to go through the gauntlet of security outside Ashe. “I feel like this is a place to come and enjoy the sport, and not have to focus on someone who’s not quite doing the best for our country right now.”
Zakkak is no fan of Trump, but she figured others at the Open final might be. The tournament welcomes around a million fans through the gates, a figure that renders partisan homogeneity nearly impossible. A graduate of the University of Alabama, Zakkak was at one of the Crimson Tide’s football games that Trump attended, where she recalls hearing a smattering of boos.
“It was drowned out by cheers,” she said. “Even in those more right-leaning spaces, there are always liberal people.”
Zakkak noted that a pricey event like Open –– particularly Sunday’s final, where the cheapest tickets were going for around $800 –– was bound to attract some Republicans.
On Sunday, Trump was reportedly the invited guest of Rolex, one of the Open’s many luxury sponsors. A spokesperson for the Swiss watchmaker did not respond to requests for comment, including a question about whether the invitation was part of a lobbying effort to get Trump to soften his trade policy. Last month, Trump set a 39 percent tariff rate on goods imported from Switzerland.
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