Influencers were invited to the US Open to promote the sport to places where it has not reached yet and increase its popularity, but that happened at a cost. They created chaos in the stadiums, disrupting matches in between, prompting players and the chair umpire to intervene mid-match. It even led hardcore tennis fans to question their presence in the stands in the first place, that too free of cost in the most premium seats.

Appearing on the Tennis Channel podcast alongside Andrea Petkovic and Nick Monroe, the world No. 10, Taylor Fritz, shared his views on whether content creators deserve a seat in the stands, as he experienced the atmosphere himself at Arthur Ashe. 

“I think as long as they know, you know, just kind of how they should be behaving at a tennis match, then it’s good,” he said. “I don’t care if people are coming to tennis that aren’t like massive tennis fans or maybe don’t even know completely what’s going on. I think it’s good for the sport to draw eyes, and I think it’s good if tournaments turn into just like a cool thing to go to and be at. I think that brings more eyes to the sport, and more eyes to the sport means more people will naturally be converted into true tennis fans.”

“Nobody starts out knowing everything there is about tennis, understanding the scoring, all that stuff,” he added. 

His one condition was specific and not broad, and targeted a specific type of scene that had caused issues and not influencers in general. 

“So I don’t have an issue with it as long as they’re not doing like the massive ring light disrupting a match. I think you need to know, at a baseline level, how to behave at a match.” 

The controversy began at Naomi Osaka’s opening match, when chair umpire Kader Nouni had to stop play mid-match to address a hospitality suite, where the influencers had staged a whole photoshoot with ring lights during a crucial point. Osaka addressed it directly in her own press conference days later.

“If you come to a sporting event, you have to respect the sport,” she said, adding that the growing presence of influencers at tournaments “has to be managed a lot better.” 

Coco Gauff also spoke up about distracting behavior during her own matches around the same stretch of the tournament.

The US Open Influencer Fiasco

The reactions rapidly turned into headlines, including “how influencers are taking over the US Open and turning it into a zoo” and “influencer boom at US Open tests boundaries of tennis etiquette.” That framing, however, missed a key detail several outlets later clarified: none of the people involved in the disruptions during Osaka’s match were actually credentialed content creators.

This year, USTA had granted media credentials to roughly around 100 creators, 46 more than last year. This includes people from the social media staff of Tennis Channel, Time, and other legacy outlets. ESPN’s credentialed creator, Sal Basnight, was extremely critical of the trend that had developed around the figure. 

“I saw one tweet from a journalist and he was complaining about media stuff here and was like, ‘Oh, they’re doing this and they’re accrediting a hundred influencers,'” he said. “That kind of pissed me off because I don’t really consider myself an influencer. I think it’s a misconception that they are just credentialing influencers. I think that whole narrative is honestly lazy.”

Two influencers, Meg Radice and Audrey Jongens, who run a New York lifestyle account, claimed their credentials were revoked after they posted a video showing them off. It prompted USTA communications head Brendan McIntyre to clarify that the pair had never actually been credentialed as media, but had instead been improperly submitted on a food vendor’s staff list.

Fritz’s own opinion on the subject adds a personal touch that is not found in other players to the same extent. His former girlfriend, Morgan Riddle, made a name for herself on social media by creating tennis content while traveling with Fritz on the tour. This has also weathered plenty of criticism over the years, once saying she has taken backlash from both fans and people within the sport itself for capitalizing on her platform rather than staying quietly in the background.