Casper Ruud’s ‘rude’ experience ahead of the first-round US Open 2025 singles contest has grabbed eyeballs, as the Norwegian 12th seed lamented the lingering cannabis smell at the courts at Flushing Meadows this season.
Ruud, who paired up with Iga Swiatek for the mixed doubles competition last week, opened up on the obnoxious feeling of having to play through such an environment.
“For me, this is the worst thing about New York,” Ruud reportedly told Norwegian media ahead of his singles first-round contest. “The smell is everywhere, even here on the courts. We have to accept it, but it’s not my favourite smell.”
‘Quite annoying’
“Every corner of every street you smell it…Worst part about New York”
— Casper Ruud on weed 🌿 🎾 pic.twitter.com/Cpbc3mkWyk
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) August 25, 2025
“It’s quite annoying to be playing, tired, and just meters away, someone is smoking marijuana, he went on. We can’t do anything about it unless the law is reversed, but I have strong doubts that will happen.”
Although smoking is banned at the US Open venue, the smell of cannabis has drifted into the area from nearby public spaces, including a large park. Usage was made permissible under New York’s 2021 law, which allows cannabis consumption wherever tobacco smoking is legal.
Sometimes cigarettes, sometimes weed
Ruud, is however, not the first high-profile player to flag the cannabis issue. During her first-round upset in the 2023 US Open, then No. 8 Maria Sakkari voiced her displeasure to the chair umpire over the lingering cannabis smell on court.
“It was weed,” Sakkari said. “The smell, oh my gosh. I think it’s from the park.”
“Sometimes it smells food, sometimes it smells cigarettes, sometimes it smells weed” Sakkari said at the time. “It’s something that we cannot control because we’re in an open space. There’s a park behind, people can do whatever they want. It’s nothing that we can control.”
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Trouble for asthmatic players
Mercurial Australian star Nick Kyrgios had raised concerns during the 2022 US Open when he urged the chair umpire to ask the crowd to not smoke on courts. “It was f**king marijuana,” Kyrgios was heard telling the umpire then. “Obviously I’m not going to be complaining about food stuff. Obviously not.”
“People don’t know. I’m a heavy asthmatic,” Kyrgios would reveal later. “When I’m running side to side, I’m struggling to breathe, probably not something I want to be breathing in in between points.”
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