US Open 2026: Courts
Sports · Tennis · US Open 2026
Courts
The whole tournament happens at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens — seventeen championship courts inside one set of gates, from Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest in the world, down to the field courts where the early rounds grind. The plan below draws every court where it actually sits, to scale, from surveyed footprints. It’s a preview: the per-court match slates light up once play begins.
Arthur Ashe Stadium23,771
Opened 1997 · retractable roof (2016) · 23,771 seats
The largest tennis stadium in the world, and the stage for both singles finals. Opened in 1997 and named for Arthur Ashe — the 1968 US Open champion and the first Black man to win a Grand Slam singles title — it seats 23,771, more than any court anywhere. For its first two decades rain could stop the show; a lightweight retractable roof, added in 2016 as the centrepiece of a $550 million transformation of the grounds, now closes over the court in under ten minutes and has retired the rain-out as Ashe’s signature drama.
Louis Armstrong Stadium14,000
Opened 2018 · retractable roof · 14,000 seats
The tournament’s second stadium, rebuilt from the ground up and reopened in 2018 on the site of its 1978 predecessor. It seats 14,000 under a retractable roof — but unlike most covered courts it is naturally ventilated: louvered openings at the north and south ends let outside air flow through even with the roof closed, so it never becomes a sealed box. It takes its name from the jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who lived a few blocks away in Corona, Queens, for the last decades of his life.
Grandstand8,125
Opened 2016 · open-air · 8,125 seats
The intimate one of the show courts — 8,125 seats, open to the sky, and the only one of the four without a roof. The current Grandstand opened in 2016 in the south-west corner of the campus, replacing an older court that had been bolted onto the side of the original Armstrong stadium. Its steep, close stands and afternoon shade make it a favourite of players and regulars alike, and through the first week it runs a dense card of seeded singles and doubles.
Stadium 172,800
Opened 2011 · open-air · 2,800 seats
Officially Court 17, universally “The Pit” — a sunken 2,800-seat bowl opened in 2011 on the eastern edge of the grounds. The court sits well below the surrounding walkway, so spectators look down into it and the noise has nowhere to go, which has earned it a reputation as the loudest, most raucous seat at the Open. It is the smallest of the four show courts, and it gives the grounds’ numbering its final twist: the numbered courts run all the way to 17, and this is 17.
Why does the numbering start at Court 4?
The numbered courts run 4 through 17 — there is no Court 1, 2, or 3. The three original show courts stand in for them: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Louis Armstrong Stadium, and the Grandstand are effectively Courts 1, 2, and 3, so the field courts pick up the count at 4. Court 17 is the exception that proves the rule — it is a show court too, the sunken bowl known as “The Pit,” and it simply kept its number.
And yes, there is a Court 13. No superstition skips it here: the field courts count straight through from 4 to 16, then the numbering jumps to 17 for Stadium 17. The four show courts carry names rather than numbers, and they are the only courts on the grounds with published seat counts of any size — the field courts share the rest of the campus, and only Courts 11 and 12, the largest of them, have a figure the venue breaks out.
The pale courts around the edge of the plan are the practice courts, including the two named for equipment sponsors. They host no championship matches and carry no numbers on the public plan, which is why they stay unlabelled here too.
The grounds plan is drawn from OpenStreetMap building footprints (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL). Capacities are the venue’s published figures, verified against current sources on 2026-07-13.