The grass season is long gone, but Britain’s players can’t escape the green stuff in New York.
At Flushing Meadows, where the hard courts sit tight against Corona Park, the smell of marijuana has become an unwanted extra for some of the US Open hopefuls. Recreational cannabis is legal for adults in New York, and while smoking is banned on site, the breeze doesn’t respect the boundaries of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Katie Boulter, Britain’s No 1, has had enough of it.
“You go down to the practice courts and down in the park courts, you do smell it a lot,” she said. “I’m not a huge fan of it. I know a lot of players have complained on some of the specific courts.
“I’ve played on one before and I did smell it during my match. It’s something that I wouldn’t like to smell in the middle of my match. I’m trying to focus and then obviously, it takes you out of the moment and you really don’t want to. You don’t need distractions. So yeah, I wasn’t a huge fan of it.”
For players trying to lock in on second-serve returns and tight tiebreaks, it is more than just a quirky New York detail. It is a distraction, hanging over the outside courts as tangibly as the late-summer humidity.
Fran Jones, the British No 3, met it with gallows humour last year.
“Last year I made a joke about that, in my first round, and I said to the guy: ‘Is this normal?’” she recalled. “Because I was on the stadium, and it’s next to the park. He’s like: ‘Yeah’. And I was: ‘Well, no wonder I’m playing pretty well’.
“This year I’ll be like: ‘No, lock in, lock in!’”
Harriet Dart, who, like Jones, battled through qualifying to reach the main draw, sounded more resigned than irritated.
“I mean it’s New York. It’s New York,” she said. “I feel like everywhere you walk around, it’s everywhere, no? It is what it is. Same for everyone.”
The USTA, caught between city law and tournament control, underlined the limits of its reach. “While we can’t control what takes place off the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, we continue to be vigilant as we maintain this,” it said in a statement, stressing that smoking remains prohibited on site.
So the smell lingers, part of the city’s backdrop as Britain’s contingent tries to tune it out and turn up their tennis.
Fery handed breakthrough chance in Winston-Salem
Away from New York, another Briton is breathing different air entirely.
Arthur Fery has stepped into the biggest opportunity of his young career, reaching his first ATP Tour final at the Winston-Salem Open after James Duckworth retired injured from their semi-final.
Fery led 6-4, 1-2 when the Australian pulled the plug with an apparent right leg problem. The Briton had seized control late in the opening set, breaking at 4-4, and the second set remained on serve until Duckworth could not continue.
It still goes down as a landmark moment. A first ATP final, a first real shot at silverware at this level, and a stage that will look very different on Saturday in North Carolina.
Waiting there is Ignacio Buse, the rising Peruvian who squeezed past France’s Benjamin Bonzi 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in the other semi-final. Buse, ranked No 36 in the world and seeded 32nd for the upcoming French Open, sits just one place above Fery in the rankings.
It is a tight, intriguing matchup: two players side by side on paper, one of them about to take a significant step forward.
