Tennis
‘Strong’ smell of marijuana sees Aryna Sabalenka halt US Open match
World number one Aryna Sabalenka called a halt to her third-round match at the US Open after complaining she could smell marijuana.
The two-time defending champion was 2-0 up and serving in the first set against Kamilla Rakhimova on Louis Armstrong Stadium.
She stopped abruptly and spoke to her team before approaching the umpire’s chair.
“Someone is smoking weed,” she told umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore. “Would you mind to… because it’s so strong.”
Asderaki-Moore spoke to an official on her radio and turned to someone else behind her, making a smoking gesture with her fingers, before play continued.
The smell of weed around Flushing Meadows has been an issue this week but has broadly been confined to the outside courts, close to nearby Corona Park.
Smoking of any kind is prohibited on the site itself. The United States Tennis Association has been approached for comment.
Sabalenka, who went on to win the match 6-3 6-4, said afterwards: “I was, like, ‘Guys, you can do whatever, you can smoke whatever, you can relax as much as you can, but please, to not do it around the tennis courts’.
“It’s a bit tricky to handle that smell while you’re trying to compete at your best. I felt like I have to tell the umpire maybe, like, they can see the person smoking so he can do it somewhere else.
“Also, because it was a bit windy, I don’t know if it was, like, coming from the crowd or was from the outside because the wind blows it into the stadium.
“I don’t know. I just hope they’re going to be a bit more aware of that stuff.
“Maybe (the match) is too fast so they want to slow down a little bit, so who knows? I don’t know the effect from it.”
Sabalenka was then mischievously asked how much of a high she was on after the match.
“High? The level? Now I can only hear the weed stuff,” she replied. “If they’re gonna keep smoking, I might get high!”
Sabalenka is not the first player to notice the smell of cannabis around the grounds. British number one Katie Boulter said that the aroma was “distracting”.
The USTA responded to the complaints earlier in the week by saying: “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 facility as a smoke-free environment.”
