A near miss for the American men produced a strong finish for the U.S. Open.
The U.S. Open tennis tournament averaged 1.17 million viewers on the ESPN family of networks, up 4% from last year and the highest average for the event since 2022, which at the time was thought to be Serena Williams’ final tournament (1.21M).
Last Sunday’s Alexander Zverev-Ben Shelton men’s final averaged a 1.7 rating and 3.23 million viewers on ABC, up from Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner last year (3.0M), and the largest audience for the event since 2013, when Rafael Nadal’s win over Novak Djokovic averaged 3.43 million on CBS. (Keep in mind those figures are based on the full telecast windows; last year’s final averaged 3.3 million on a match window basis.)
Since ESPN began airing the tournament in its entirety in 2015, the previous high for a men’s final was 3.15 million for Djokovic against Roger Federer in the first year of that arrangement.
Note that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020 or fully accounted for until 2025, that this is only in the second year of a new Nielsen methodology integrating “Big Data” from smart TVs, set-top boxes and first party data with its traditional panel, and that Nielsen has recently introduced a tweak to its measurement that is intended to better account for co-viewing.
Compared to the previous US Open final to feature an American man, Taylor Fritz’ loss to Sinner two years ago, viewership increased 93% from 1.67 million.
Shelton played in the two most-watched matches of the tournament, as his semifinal win over fellow American Frances Tiafoe averaged a 1.5 and 3.09 million last Friday night — the most-watched men’s semifinal on the ESPN networks. The full men’s semifinal round averaged 2.2 million, including a 0.7 and 1.20 million for Zverev’s ho-hum win over Karen Khachanov.
Shifting to the women’s competition, the Elena Rybakina-Aryna Sabalenka final averaged a 1.3 and 2.74 million on ESPN last Saturday afternoon — up 13% from Sabalenka’s win over American Amanda Anisimova last year (2.4M) and the top audience for the event since American Coco Gauff’s 2023 win over Sabalenka (3.42M).
While there was acrimony on social media over the tennis match being shown in its entirety, bumping the preceding college football game to ESPN2 (and later ESPNews), it should be noted that the women’s final was the most-watched program of any kind on ESPN Saturday — surpassing all of the college football games and “College Gameday.”
Two nights earlier, the women’s semifinals — Rybakina and Sabalenka defeating Americans Gauff and Jessica Pegula, respectively — averaged a 1.2 and 2.24 million, up 24% from last year and the highest average for the round since it began airing on ESPN in 2015.
The quarterfinals averaged 1.3 million, down from 1.4 million last year, dragged down the September 9 night session (0.49, 873K) that faced the NFL Kickoff Game. The round topped out at a 0.9 and 1.62 million for the previous day’s night session, an eight-hour window that ended after 3 AM ET. The featured match, Shelton’s late night win over Alcaraz, averaged 1.3 million, peaked at 1.8 million at 11 PM, and was still averaging 967,000 at the 3:40 AM conclusion.
The tournament also included the most-watched third round since 2022, headlined by a 0.6 and 1.18 million for the primetime window featuring Serena and Venus Williams’ first round doubles loss (September 6 on ESPN2).
