Serena Williams’ US Open farewell began with a record opening night on par with last year’s final.
Monday’s primetime coverage of the US Open averaged 1.75 million viewers on ESPN, including 2.7 million for Serena Williams’ victory over Danka Kovinic — up 279% from last year and easily the largest opening round audience since ESPN began airing the tournament in 2009. The previous high was 1.24 million in 2019.
Viewership for Williams’ match — which peaked with 3.2 million from 9-9:15 PM ET — was on par with last year’s Emma Raducanu-Leylah Fernandez women’s final (~2.7M*) and comfortably ahead of last year’s Daniil Medvedev-Novak Djokovic men’s final (~2.2M*). Williams is playing in what is widely expected to be her final US Open and possibly the final tournament of her career.
As tennis viewership is typically reported for telecast windows rather than individual matches, it is not immediately possible to say where Monday’s audience ranks in Williams’ US Open career. For some perspective, viewership clocked in ahead of her previous meeting with sister Venus Williams — a 2018 third round match that averaged 2.38 million — but was no match for the siblings’ 2015 quarterfinal, which averaged 6.0 million during Serena’s pursuit of the calendar Grand Slam.
As one would expect, each of Williams’ US Open singles finals averaged a larger audience, the least-watched being her 2018 loss to Naomi Osaka at 3.08 million.
Competing coverage on ESPN2 averaged 174,000 viewers, bringing the total primetime average up to 1.92 million. Including afternoon coverage on ESPN, which at 626,000 viewers was the most-watched on the opening day of play since 2015 (680K), the full first day of coverage averaged 843,000 — the highest since ESPN acquired rights.
Williams’ previous Grand Slam match, a first round Wimbledon loss to Harmony Tan, averaged 842,000 in a mid-afternoon window.
* Last year’s figures are subject to upward revision due to Nielsen’s undercount of out-of-home data.
(Nielsen estimates from ESPN PR, ShowBuzz Daily 8.30)
