Weed at the U.S. Open? Some Players Swear They Can Smell It

NEW YORK — Those familiar with New York City know it’s a place where you will occasionally be confronted with the smell of marijuana. But when some of the world’s most elite tennis players caught a whiff of weed during opening day of the U.S. Open in Queens, an investigation was launched to find the possible source.

The investigation’s findings were inconclusive, officials said, but the odor wasn’t a mystery to Nathan Joseph, 24, a dishwasher at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the tournament is played.

Around 7 p.m. Wednesday, Joseph rolled a joint on a park bench just outside the stadium. He often smokes marijuana during his breaks, he said, and so do many of his colleagues.

“What else do they want me to do?” he said, adding that he doesn’t smoke inside the complex.

Maria Sakkari, of Greece, was the first player to bring attention to the smell, said Chris Widmaier, a spokesperson for the U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open. Sakkari was facing off against Spain’s Rebeka Masarova on Monday when she told the chair umpire that she smelled marijuana.

“It was weed,” Sakkari said during a news conference, adding, “It was smelling quite a lot.”

Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is within Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and the match was played on Court 17, on the southeast corner of the complex.

Other players who played on the court later commented on the smell, Widmaier said.

The stadium does not permit smoking of any kind, Widmaier said, but the USTA began investigating whether the smell could be coming from within the complex.

Officials interviewed multiple employees and reviewed video of games played on the court, Widmaier said, but they “didn’t see anyone in the stadium lighting anything up.”

“I don’t know if the marijuana smell is from inside the stadium or if it wafted over from somewhere else in the park,” he said.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation was told that players were noticing a marijuana smell possibly coming from just outside the stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, said Dan Kastanis, a senior press officer for New York City Parks.

The parks department was “working with the United States Tennis Association and the New York City Police Department to address the complaints,” he said.

He added that city law prohibits smoking at Flushing Meadows Corona Park and all other New York City parks.

Since the U.S. Open began Monday, Widmaier said that he had been to the court in question multiple times and hadn’t smelled anything out of the ordinary.

“I haven’t noticed it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the court smelled like sunscreen and fried food from a nearby concession stand offering hot dogs, chicken strips and fries. The faint scent of urine drifted from the restrooms north of the stands.

Smoking his joint in a section of the park that neighbored Court 17, Joseph and several of his colleagues were in clear view of police officers. As red and blue lights flashed from a nearby police cruiser, he said he had no plans to stop smoking during his breaks.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/nyregion/weed-smell-us-open.html">The New York Times</a>.