Katie Boulter Faces Cannabis Smell at US Open

Katie Boulter is used to dealing with pressure. Noise. Heat. The chaos of New York. What she is not prepared to tolerate is the smell.

As the US Open returns to Flushing Meadows, Britain’s number one has joined a growing list of players irritated by the persistent waft of cannabis drifting across from nearby Corona Park – an unofficial, unwanted extra in one of tennis’s loudest theatres.

“It’s something that I wouldn’t like to smell in the middle of my match,” Boulter said as she prepared for her first-round meeting with American wildcard Carol Young Suh Lee. She has been practising on the outside courts, and the experience has been impossible to ignore.

She can smell it. A lot.

A recurring nuisance at Flushing Meadows

Cannabis is legal in New York State for adults over 21, and while smoking is not allowed on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the reality of an open complex next to a busy park is clear on court.

“I know a lot of players have complained on some of the specific courts,” Boulter said. “I’ve played on one before and I did smell it during my match.”

For an elite player trying to serve out a set or hold off a break point, it is not a minor detail.

“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.”

The issue is not new. The smell of cannabis has become a strange, almost annual subplot at the US Open.

In 2022, Nick Kyrgios stopped during a match to complain that a fan smoking near the court was affecting his asthma. The chair umpire had to appeal to the crowd to stop. A year later, Maria Sakkari told the umpire mid-set that she could smell cannabis, later stressing she was not using it as a reason for her defeat.

The pattern is familiar: a player breaks concentration, the cameras pick up the exchange, social media reacts, and the smell lingers on.

USTA on alert, but limits are clear

The United States Tennis Association insists it is not ignoring the problem. The organisation says it works with local police and the parks department to limit smoking on the perimeter of the grounds.

“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,” the USTA has said.

The message is blunt: they can patrol the fences, not the park beyond them. For players on the outer courts, that distinction is academic.

British players split between irritation and humour

Boulter is not alone among the British contingent in noticing the haze.

Fran Jones, who came through qualifying and opens against Poland’s Magda Linette on Monday, recalled her first real taste of Flushing Meadows’ more pungent side.

“Last year I made a joke about that, in my first round, and I said to the guy, ‘is this normal?’” she said. She had been playing on a stadium court, close to the park. The answer came back quickly: yes, it is.

Her punchline was as dry as the New York hard courts. “Well, no wonder I’m playing pretty well.”

This year, though, Jones is trying to treat it less as a running gag and more as background noise to shut out. “This year I’ll be like ‘no, lock in, lock in!’”

Harriet Dart, who beat fellow Brit Heather Watson in qualifying to earn a first-round clash with American Peyton Stearns, met the subject with a shrug that felt very New York.

“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.”

That last line cuts to the competitive core. The smell does not discriminate. It drifts over both baselines.

Focus amid the fumes

For Boulter, though, this is not about atmosphere or city character. It is about performance. She arrives at the US Open as world number 60 and Britain’s leading woman, looking to turn a solid season into something more substantial on one of the sport’s biggest stages.

Distractions at this level are costly. The margins are already thin enough without an unexpected, invasive scent breaking concentration on a crucial point.

Flushing Meadows has long embraced its reputation as tennis’s loudest, wildest Grand Slam – the night sessions, the restless crowd, the planes overhead. Now, with cannabis legal in the city and a public park pressed up against the complex, players must handle one more quirk of New York’s only major.

The question is no longer whether they can hear the city. It’s whether they can block out what they can’t help but smell.