Amanda Wight stood ready outside the President’s Gate entrance to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens last week, tracking the exact GPS location of her inbound celebrities. She knew when their car was 10 minutes away and then five minutes away. When it arrived on the grounds, she edged into position.
The car stopped, and the actress Olivia Munn and the comedian John Mulaney stepped out of the back seat. Ms. Wight smiled, chatted briefly with the couple, and then ushered them over to a blue carpet where half a dozen photographers snapped pictures.
She slipped colored bands on the celebrities’ wrists before leading them through the exclusive entrance and up to their seats in the stadium.
Once the couple was seated, she had to rush back to greet another actress, Bridget Moynahan. Another day, she schmoozed with Sami Khedira, the former German soccer star, before escorting him through the press line, all while holding a printed list of the other notable people expected to arrive later.
“There’s a ton to keep track of,” Ms. Wight said, flicking through a spreadsheet on her phone that highlighted all the boldfaced names expected to visit each day: Timothée Chalamet, Queen Latifah, Shonda Rhimes, Anna Wintour.
For a couple of weeks every year, the U.S. Open is one of the world’s top celebrity destinations, where a steady stream of A-listers get to see the best tennis players on the planet — and be seen by millions on TV.
So far this year, Stephen Colbert, Spike Lee, Ben Stiller, Thom Browne, Jim Parsons, Lindsay Lohan, H.E.R. and the cast of “Abbott Elementary” have all been spotted, photographed and tagged on social media.
Most of them were invited by Ms. Wight, an unassuming sports executive who controls access for hundreds of celebrities craving a blue-carpet reveal and premium tickets. If they meet her team’s threshold for fame and relevance, she extends an invitation, ensures they have a smooth visit and then makes certain that the world knows about it.
Though she is now on the contact lists of some of the biggest stars in the world, Ms. Wight did not come from a cosmopolitan background. She is from Southend, Australia, a tiny fishing and beach village of fewer than 300 people. “The big city nearby is Millicent,” she said. (Millicent has fewer than 5,000 people.) But she always loved sports and carved out a career in sports marketing and hospitality.
For the last eight years, she has been with the U.S. Tennis Association, where her current title is director of international strategy, marketing and celebrity management.
That last part makes her very popular.
“Every agent under the sun has my number,” she said. “Arguably, the celebrity program is our biggest marketing tool.”
And it is a program, not just a ticket giveaway for seats that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars. According to Nicole Kankam, the managing director of marketing and entertainment at the U.S.T.A., the deal is that celebrities gain free access with the understanding that they will be photographed outside the stadium, appear on television in over 200 countries and, ideally, post about their experience.
The U.S. Open leverages that promotion for all it is worth. Staff members notify media outlets and paparazzi about who is coming each day and pinpoint their seats for television crews and photographers inside the stadium. Sometimes an unexpected celebrity moment caught on camera, like Kevin Hart struggling to keep up with the action on the court, can explode on social media, creating even more interest and demand.
“It absolutely helps grow the sport,” Ms. Kankam said.
Many celebrities or their agents ask Ms. Wight directly for tickets. Some go through sponsors, others send direct messages on social media and one or two have even left voice messages on the Open’s customer help lines. Sometimes, Ms. Wight and her team will notice that a famous person is in New York and reach out with an invitation.
In 2021, she brought Brad Pitt and Bradley Cooper to the President’s Box — usually reserved for the most premium guests — where they took selfies and greeted fans while watching the men’s final. Alec Baldwin showed up, too, and Rami Malek was in the same row.
Ms. Wight has help from her staff, but when the biggest names arrive, she must be there to welcome them personally and escort them to their suites. Some — like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce last year, and Justin Bieber in 2023 — avoid the blue carpet and enter through the players’ entrance, accompanied by a security team. Others, like Tom Brady in 2023, are invited by players, and a handful show up on their own, unannounced. But Ms. Wight has a spotter and a photographer in the stadium.
“There’s not many people who get past me,” she said.
With demand for tickets rising among famous people, the U.S.T.A. hired a communications and consulting firm — Sunshine Sachs Morgan and Lylis — three years ago to broaden outreach and measure the results.
The firm helps bring in some stars and also analyzes each celebrity’s visit, mostly through social media engagement, to determine its impact and appeal. That information is factored in when celebrities ask to come back.
“They track every person that comes on site,” Ms. Wight said. “What they are posting, who they are tagging, who they are coming with. Then we are able to get a value of what the program is worth to us.”
That leads to the most difficult part of the job: turning down people who think they are worthy of a celebrity invitation but might not have the requisite Q rating.
“If I had my own stadium just to fill celebrities in, I could probably fill that,” she said. “Everyone wants men’s final tickets, but they may not be of that high level that we really want in the house for finals, so that’s the biggest headache.”
Then there are the times when celebrities cancel at the last minute, or a big star asks for tickets hours before a big match, or another surprise arises. Last week, Coco Gauff, the American woman who won the U.S. Open in 2023, wanted to meet Simone Biles.
The instant Ms. Wight heard that, she ran to the suite where Ms. Biles was watching and arranged the introduction in the players’ lobby. She also made sure it was captured on social media.
David Waldstein is a Times reporter who writes about the New York region, with an emphasis on sports.
Vincent Alban is a photojournalist and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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