Cincinnati Open: The Official Tournament Guide

Tournament Guides
Written By Charlie Ray
- CHARLIE RAY

In 2025, the Cincinnati Open debuted the results of its $260 million renovation… and we were there to witness it. In our first few minutes on the grounds, we could tell we were witnessing something special. During Tommy Paul’s R2 post-match interview, he said that the Cincinnati Open was now on-par with Wimbledon as the most exceptional tournament on tour. If you weren’t there, you might not get it; if you were, it made all the sense in the world.

Check out our comprehensive guide to the Cincinnati Open and discover why we’re calling it the best tournament on tour.

Where to stay

To start off: the Cincinnati Open is not in Cincinnati. Much like the Miami Open (which is in Miami Gardens, a far cry and a grueling car ride in traffic from the South Beach we know and love), the Cincinnati Open is in Mason, OH – which will take you about 40 minutes to reach from CVG airport.

For most tournaments, we'd recommend staying in the heart of the city and trekking out to the venue. For the Cincinnati Open, we recommend the opposite. Cincinnati is an awesome city – and you should absolutely explore great neighborhoods like Over-The-Rhine – but it has remarkably little to do with the tournament.

This tournament isn't about tourism, travel, big cities, or anything remotely commercial. This is about finding the flattest, most remote field of grass in the middle of the country, building a world class tennis facility, and getting dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

We stayed at the AC Hotel at Liberty Center, which ended up being the ATP and Tennis Channel media hotel. We recommend it as it offers a step or two more sophistication than the hotels in walking distance of the grounds. It's in a collection of desirable, ultra-suburban restaurants, bars, and shopping that feel more elevated than Mason proper.

When to go

As you consume our guides, you'll find a common theme: go to tennis tournaments early. That means R1-R3, or the first week/weekend for a two-week tournament. Sure, you might want to see a semi-final or final, but the reality is: if you buy tickets to a later round expecting to experience a tournament, you just won't see that much tennis.

Going early is also a sure-fire way to guarantee you see favorite players who hover outside the top 10 from just a few yards away in the front row of outer courts.

How you’ll get around

Transit be damned, we're in the midwest! You'll need to rent a car to get to-and-from the tournament – don't rely too closely on Ubers either. Some hotels offer shuttles, but we can't imagine being beholden to someone else's scheduling when charting your daily course around a pro tennis tournament. Plus, shuttle lines were brutal at the end of each session.

Pick up a rental car at CVG and make your way to the Lindner Family Tennis Center.

Parking

Parking at the Cincinnati Open seems like it should be a headache, but the staff does an exceptional job. Every general admission ticket comes with free parking, which is an absolute gift compared to other American tournaments.

Show up 30-45 minutes before gates open to secure the best GA lots. You'll spend about 15-20 minutes actually parking and walking to the gates, so if you set your GPS arrival time to around 40 minutes before gates open, you'll be golden.

Early birds get access to ridiculously convenient lots (Lot G). Latecomers might get stuck with Lot U, which seems like a brutal walk away from the grounds; however, it's actually a somewhat enjoyable 12-15 minute walk as long as you can handle a bit of grass.

The Grounds

If you follow our parking guide, you'll use the North entrance. As the tournament goes on, lines here may be long – so note that there's an East entrance just to your left (if you're facing the North entrance) that's only an extra 100-200 steps away. Lines there were occasionally shorter.

Upon entry, the grounds were somewhat disorienting until we understood what was really going on. Essentially, the grounds are centered around four main courts that run north-south through the distance of the facility.

In the middle of everything, you'll find Center Court and Grandstand, which are two large courts connected by a shared club and media tower. On either side are two smaller courts also used for exceptional matches: Champion's Court and Court 10 (Court 10 being our favorite on the grounds!). In the orbit of Champion's Court and Court 10 are smaller courts used for practice and less-buzzy matches – the exception being Courts 3 and 4, which have high rows of bleachers just east of the main thruway from Court 10.

If the courts shape the tournament like a dumbbell standing on its end, the entire right (east) side is filled with food and drink vendors, merch, and fan activations. The left (west) side is mostly player facilities and generally uninteresting for attendees. You can plant yourself by a walkway on the west side where players cross from the lounge to the media desk – but other than that, the west side is relatively low-traffic.

Sun vs. Shade

Sun vs. shade becomes a giant theme at the Cincinnati Open – this tournament is hot. Different than Miami Open hot, or any other kind of tennis tournament hot. This is dead of summer, direct-sun heat. Shade is a prized possession, and finding it isn't always easy. Here are the best ways:

  • The Dobel Tequila Club and Oasis Club are shaded bar areas on the second floor of the Center Court perimeter, open to the public. Not only are they shaded, but they have fans (and often refreshing cocktails).

  • The merch store near Center Court has powerful air conditioning and is by far the best way to cool down quickly. Pop in for five or ten minutes for a reset.

  • Shaded tables in the food and beverage area are hard to come by. All tournament attendees are incredibly savvy about predicting where shade will be next. If you're a party of more than one, split up and send one person to scout and secure a table while the other waits in line.

  • Buy tickets smartly and plan your match attendance even more smartly. The side with the chair umpire always gets more shade during the day.

How Seating Works

For Cincinnati, ticketing revolves around two courts – then access to the remainder of the grounds is via Grounds Pass.

For Center Court, matches are fully ticketed, meaning your seat is your seat. You can pick between lower bowl tickets, second and third tier tickets, various shaded special sections, and a series of differently tiered club level tickets. If you buy a seat here, you'll have it locked for an entire day or night session.

For Grandstand, the lower bowl is fully ticketed, assigned seating – but the upper bowl is general admission, open to anyone with tournament access. This makes it easy to pop into the fantastic matches scheduled there.

The rest of the courts are accessible via grounds pass or if you have a ticketed seat on another court – meaning you can have a Center Court ticket and instead choose to see Lorenzo Musetti and Benjamin Bonzi on Court 10.

Our Recommendation

Buy a second tier or lower bowl (if you want to splurge) ticket on Center Court for every session and the world will be your oyster. With this ticket, you'll have an incredible seat to any match you'd like: Center Court is covered, Grandstand access is covered in the upper bowl, and you can move around to any court on campus.

Heads up: you may hop in your seat at 11am, see the heat, and think "what have I done?" – but don't worry. If you grabbed your seat on the chair umpire side, you'll be shaded by around 2:30 and feel fantastic about your choice.

Our hot take on Cincinnati: skip the club level. We explored the Grandstand Club for one of our evening sessions and found it wholly uneventful. Given that the grounds' food selection is so fantastic (more on that below), we found the F&B in the club uneventful. Free soda, beer, and wine was included – but with such heat, there's really no path to slamming drinks every 15-20 minutes other than water.

We also disliked the view from those seats. The grandstand club seemed to be the most accessible of the club levels and was somewhat disappointing.

Vendors & Concessions

Campus-wide food and beverage vendors at the Cincinnati Open are legit. Expect numerous options for lunches and dinners – everything from corn-fed American Chicken Salad Chick and Playa Bowls for açaí to heartier options for dinner in Italian and Asian places.

They've got a coffee place for breakfast where an iced latte will kick start your day perfectly.

Graeter's ice cream, Cincinnati's iconic frozen treat, holds down the fort at the food area. Don't miss it. Go every day. Black Raspberry Chocolate Chunk. Lemon Sorbet. Anything.

And, of course, there's Skyline Chili. If ground beef and a suspicious brown sauce that tastes like chocolate and cinnamon served over spaghetti (topped with shredded cheese) floats your boat, then you've found the right tournament… but also the wrong blog, because you're not welcome here. Next!

Invest in Ice

File this away as: things that seem like scams but are actually incredibly high value. As you move around the grounds, you'll see "Ice Stations" around Center Court. At these stations, you can buy souvenir cups and water bottles for moderately-upcharged-but-not-ridiculous prices; however, if you buy one of these cups or tumblers on-campus, you can return to this station for the duration of the tournament (and any tournaments after that) for free ice refills. This is huge.

The difference between trying to recover with water vs. ice water is immense – the free ice is a huge cheat code. Plus, even though the souvenir drinkware is marked up a bit, it's still cheaper than what you'd pay for a new Hydroflask on Amazon. Don't miss the free ice.

Food and Beverage Cheat Codes

A few odds and ends we collected:

  • No outside food and drink is allowed. The coffee place is good, but breakfast food offerings are thin. Consider eating a small bit before arriving but saving the coffee for the tournament.

  • Hidden frosé bar: All the way behind Grandstand at ground level is an unassuming bar area that serves frosé. To our knowledge, it's the only frosé on the grounds. Not only is it tasty, but it's a fantastic weapon against the heat! It's also absolutely hidden away, so don't miss it.

  • Graeter's timing: It'll be packed between Center Court matches, but it's absolutely essential to recover from the heat. If you can tell where a match is going (and it's not a total nail biter), sneak out a changeover early to grab your ice cream and recover.

  • Best cocktails: Around campus, there are small popup bars (branded with Maestro Dobel), which you'd assume would make worse cocktails than the permanent-fixture bars; in actuality, the small popup bars are the only bars where they'll actually shake your cocktails (vs. just assemble them in the glass) and we found the difference noticeable.

! CAROLINE SECTION ALERT !

Going into my first Cincinnati Open, I expected heat, but I wasn't prepared for HEAT. We're talking 85 degrees that feels like 95, relentless sun until 5pm, and humidity so oppressive it was dropping people like Wimbledon. By the final day, I was desperately buying a matching Wilson outfit from the tournament shop because I'd sweated through everything I'd packed.

The Non-Negotiables

First, no matter how confidently you declare "I tan so well," the Cincinnati sun will torch you – especially your scalp. Get a hat and spray sunscreen directly on your head and hairline, reapplying throughout the day.

Second, while I love a mini skirt, think twice unless you're cool with sticking to every surface or sliding right off because you've soaked through the fabric. Choose your lengths strategically.

The Reality: It's All Activewear

Here's what caught us off guard: forget everything you know about tennis tournament fashion. The Cincinnati Open has an unspoken uniform: premium activewear. Everyone's in their best tennis skirts, matching player kits, athletic dresses, and Lululemon sets. Half the women were wearing matching outfits from the tournament shop (guilty!). This tournament is about function over fashion.

Our Strategy: Vintage Athletic Chic

Instead of fighting it, embrace it brilliantly. Skip the predictable new Wilson set or Lululemon x Cincy Tennis collaboration everyone else will be wearing.

Hit up Poshmark and vintage stores for incredible vintage activewear from Adidas, Nike, Fila, Lacoste, or New Balance – those perfect polyester-nylon-spandex blends from the early 2000s that actually breathe. Find one-of-a-kind pieces you can elevate with a great bag and vintage sneakers.

You'll stay cool, comfortable, and completely original while everyone else melts in identical pro shop outfits.

This is nuanced but should absolutely be addressed as it was a chief takeaway from the Cincinnati Open.

When you attend other American tournaments (like the US Open and Miami Open), the crowds are very tennis-nouveau, meaning they don't quite understand or appreciate the game, and are often there to have a great time, be seen socially, and perhaps develop their appreciation – WHICH IS GREAT. There's nothing wrong with that. The beauty of tennis is that spectating it allows everyday people to feel like they've accessed something aspirational.

With all that said, it was refreshing and thrilling to experience the crowds at the Cincinnati Open – where you could turn to your right or left and have in-depth conversations with attendees about players outside the Top 50, iconic tennis moments from 50 years ago, or just nuanced conversations about the sport in general.

We met so many people with whom we had nothing in common age or background-wise, and shared delightful conversations just because we loved the sport. Leaning over to Mary Sue, 62, on your right after a beautiful Musetti backhand and saying, "Poetry!" – a real sense of American tennis community that I had never experienced.

Now the downside, which I almost regret typing… dedicated American tennis fans love tennis in a very… American way. Unfortunately, even through their love for the game, there's not much adoption of tennis etiquette, like generally being quiet or not moving around during points. I loved talking to Mary Sue, 62, to my right but cringed when she would comment at full volume during points, or say "wow what a serve!" at a volume closer to a shout than a statement after a nice T-serve.

At some point, I relaxed into the understanding that this was the Cincinnati crowd, and the players ultimately like the engagement and energy and can look past the distractions – but it did feel unusual.

Net-net, I never saw a player stop a match to ask the umpire to get Mary Sue, 62, to be quiet, so ultimately… I'm just happy that the crowd was there for the love of the game. But we were definitely in Mason, OH – that's for sure.

The Cincinnati Open is the tennis lover's tournament. I cannot recommend it more wholeheartedly. I can't see myself ever having a tennis experience where I'm closer to the action and feeling every heartbeat and bead of sweat. I cannot recommend it enough – and to any prospective tennis fans, I recommend pulling the trigger on this tournament as soon as your interest in tennis surpasses Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and starts to appreciate Botic van de Zandschulp and Miomir Kecmanović.

Walking into it, I'd only advise that you be careful of the heat, and be ready with sunscreen, ice (buy the tumbler) and a commitment to sweating and getting every penny's worth on those outer courts.

If this is Best of Ten, we may have found the Best in only Three.

Charlie Ray
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The Reality of Tennis Fashion