The number ESPN had never reached before
Sunday’s first round at the US Open averaged 914,000 viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with a peak of 1.3 million. The figures, released Tuesday, make it the largest opening-day audience in the network’s history of covering the tournament.
Year on year the combined ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 audience rose 13 percent. ABC alone averaged 1.25 million, a 7 percent increase. That last comparison carries an asterisk worth reading: in 2025 opening day ran on ABC and ESPN2 only, so a third channel was feeding the 2026 total.
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Djokovic losing was the draw
The primetime window belonged to Mariano Navone, unseeded, and to the four-time champion he removed from the draw. Navone’s upset of No. 4 seed Novak Djokovic ran four hours and 36 minutes on ESPN and averaged 958,000 viewers, up 10 percent on the equivalent slot last year.
The audience curve tells you when the room understood what it was watching. Viewership peaked at an average of 1.3 million between 9:45 and 10 p.m. ET, the stretch in which Djokovic’s resistance finally gave out after he had taken the second and third sets.
A single primetime match outdrawing the day’s own average is not unusual. A first-round match doing it, on a Sunday, against a field that still contained most of the tournament’s headline names, is a different matter.
What it sets up
The tournament runs to Sept. 13, and ESPN has now banked its record before the seeded players have started eliminating each other. The men’s draw lost its most decorated remaining champion on day one, which removes an obvious ratings anchor from the second week and hands the network a bracket whose commercial value depends on players who have never carried a Grand Slam final on American television.
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