NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump will watch the U.S. Open men’s final from Rolex’s suite in Arthur Ashe Stadium, a person with knowledge of the details said Saturday.
Trump’s first appearance at the Grand Slam tournament in New York since 2015 will be Sunday as a guest of the Swiss watchmaker, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because those plans were not publicly revealed.
If there is any negative reaction to Trump's presence, it won’t be shown on ABC’s telecast of the match between No. 1 Jannik Sinner and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz. That's a standard U.S. Tennis Association policy.
“We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions,” the organization said in a statement.
Trump frequently attended the U.S. Open in the years before that when he lived in New York and before he launched his political career. He now primarily lives at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, when he’s not in Washington.
Accepting use of Rolex’s suite is noteworthy since it comes weeks after the Trump administration imposed a whopping 39% tariff on Swiss products. That’s over 2 1/2 times higher than the one on European Union goods exported to the U.S. and nearly four times higher than on British exports to the U.S. — which has raised questions about Switzerland’s ability to compete with the 27-member bloc that it neighbors.
It’s the latest high-profile sporting event for Trump after the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 500 in Florida, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The Trump Organization once controlled a suite at the U.S. Open which was adjacent to the television broadcasting booth in Arthur Ashe Stadium, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term.
Despite Trump’s past association with the tournament, having a sitting president at the U.S. Open is unusual. It hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton attended in 2000. Former President Barack Obama and wife, Michelle, attended the opening night in 2023.
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Associated Press Writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
