US Open Tennis 2026 at Flushing Meadows: The Long Island Guide to Getting There

If you are planning car service to the US Open tennis from Long Island this year, the window to build your calendar around is Sunday, August 23 through Sunday, September 13, 2026. Twenty-two days at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. It is the longest edition in the tournament's history and the biggest sustained transportation event in the New York metro area.

To be clear about which US Open this is: the tennis championships in Queens, not the golf major at Shinnecock Hills in Southampton. Different sport, different end of the region, completely different traffic problem.

I have been driving people into Flushing Meadows for 20 years. The tennis is straightforward. The parking lots are not.

The 2026 Schedule in Plain Terms

Fan Week and qualifying run August 23 through August 29. Grounds access during Fan Week is free with a registered Fan Access Pass, which is why it drew 239,307 people last year, up 10 percent. Main draw singles and doubles begin Sunday, August 30 and run through September 13.

Arthur Ashe Stadium seats about 23,000, the largest tennis venue in the world. Total 2025 attendance was a record 1,144,562, up 9 percent and the second straight year above a million. That is the volume you are driving into.

Fan Week Is the Week Long Island Families Should Look At

Arthur Ashe Kids' Day is Sunday, August 23, 9:30 am to 6:00 pm, free with a pass, with the Savannah Bananas on the grounds from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm. If you have kids in Melville or Massapequa who have never seen Ashe from the inside, that is the day.

Roger Federer returns to Arthur Ashe on Tuesday, August 25 at 7:00 pm alongside Andy Roddick, Andre Agassi and John McEnroe. The Mixed Doubles Championship runs August 25 and 26 with a 16-team field, an 8-team qualifier on August 24, and Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka on the entry list. Stars of the Open follows on Thursday, August 27 at 6:00 pm.

Ticket prices tell you what kind of night these are. Ashe quarterfinal seats run roughly $88 by day and $173 at night, and the men's final sits near $686 face value with resale reported as high as $30,000.

Parking Is $40, and the Good Lot Vanishes for Six Days

Parking is $40 per car, paid on arrival, and the rate is the same in every zone. You pay $40 whether NYPD waves you into the best lot or the worst one.

There are three zones. Yellow is the Citi Field main lot and the one you want, a 5 to 10 minute walk across the elevated boardwalk over the transit tracks into the East Gate. Blue and Orange are Lots 1 through 7 inside the park, a 10 to 15 minute walk plus whatever the park roads are doing.

Here is the part almost nobody checks. The Yellow Zone closes to tennis fans on Mets home dates, which in 2026 are August 25 through August 30 and September 4 through September 6. On those days you get redirected into Blue and Orange, and the guidance is to arrive no later than 8:30 am for a day session.

Look at what that overlaps. The Mets host Milwaukee August 25 to 27, Houston August 28 to 30, and San Francisco September 4 to 6 over Labor Day weekend. Main draw opening day, Sunday, August 30, is a baseball day. Roughly 40,000 baseball fans and 30,000 tennis fans into the same lots on the same morning.

And when it is over, exiting the USTA lots takes 45 to 60 minutes. You paid $40 to sit in a parking lot for an hour.

Black Cars and Rideshare Get One Drop Point

All rideshare and black-car vehicles drop off and pick up at the parking lot within the NY Hall of Science. A direct walking path leads from there to the Champions' Entry, with a complimentary shuttle for guests who need assistance. There is no main-entrance drop-off for anyone. We built a dedicated US Open hourly service page around exactly this pickup, including the map link to the lot.

That restriction is not a problem if your driver knows it. It is a problem if he does not. The difference between a chauffeur who knows where he is allowed to stage and an app driver who has never been to the tennis center is 25 minutes and a phone call in a crowd of 30,000 people.

The Night Session Is Where This Gets Decided

Night sessions start at 7:00 pm and end anywhere from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am, depending on how long matches run. Nobody knows in advance. That is tennis.

Uber and taxi pricing after a session routinely runs 2 to 4 times normal, worst after night matches, when tens of thousands of people request a car inside the same ten minutes. Standing in the Hall of Science lot at 12:40 am after a five-set match, watching a price climb on your phone, is a bad end to an expensive night.

A chauffeur who is already parked and waiting is the whole pitch here. You text when you stand up from your seat.

The Route from Nassau and Suffolk

From central Long Island the run is the LIE (I-495) west to the Grand Central Parkway. When the GCP backs up at the Whitestone interchange, Northern Boulevard (Route 25A) is the surface backup, and knowing when to bail off the parkway is most of the job.

From a Midtown East office it is the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the LIE, 35 to 45 minutes. From the Upper East Side, the RFK Bridge to the Grand Central Parkway, 25 to 35 minutes. Our Long Island car service covers this corridor, and for tournament days hourly service is the right structure, because a session does not end on a clock.

Flying In for the Tournament

LaGuardia is three miles from the tennis center, a 10 to 15 minute drive. No venue in our service area sits closer to an airport. JFK is 20 to 30 minutes north on the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678).

If family or clients are coming in for a session, one arrangement covers the arrival and the run to Flushing the same day. We watch the flight rather than the scheduled time, so a delay does not leave anybody at Terminal 4 with luggage and a 7:00 pm ticket. Our LaGuardia car service page covers the LGA side.

The LIRR Does Not Solve This for Most of Long Island

Mets-Willets Point is 19 minutes from Penn Station or Grand Central Madison, $5 off peak and $7 peak. Genuinely useful if you are already in Manhattan.

The catch is that Mets-Willets Point sits on the Port Washington Branch, and that branch does not serve the Main Line. Coming from Huntington, Melville, Babylon, Ronkonkoma or the East End, you transfer at Woodside. That is a two-seat ride at 11:00 pm, dressed up, with a connection you can miss. The 7 train is $3.00 each way and 35 to 45 minutes from Times Square, which works fine going in and is a different experience going home late.

In Great Neck or Manhasset traveling light, the train is a reasonable call. For a group, a night session, or anyone in Suffolk, the math does not hold up.

One More Reason Not to Wing It This Year

The $800 million reimagination of Arthur Ashe Stadium is underway, the largest single investment in US Open history. The courtside bowl goes from 3,000 to 5,000 seats and the promenade concourse is 40 percent larger. The work is phased through 2027 and the tournament runs uninterrupted, but gate flow and circulation are different this year. Worth planning the arrival rather than improvising it.

If You Are Entertaining Clients

The US Open is one of the biggest client entertainment events on the New York corporate calendar. Law firms, wealth managers and brokerages buy suites and courtside packages, then have to move clients from Manhattan and Long Island offices to Queens and home again.

Putting the party in one vehicle, door to door, with a driver holding nearby for a match that might run to midnight, is what our corporate car service is built around. One bill, no client standing in the Hall of Science lot at 12:30 am trying to work an app.

Book Your Ride for the US Open

Twenty-two days, $40 parking, the best lot gone on six of those dates, one restricted drop point, an hour to clear the lots, and a finish time nobody can predict. None of that needs to be your problem.

If you want a professional chauffeur to the US Open from anywhere on Long Island and a driver waiting when your session ends, request a quote here. Tell us the date and whether it is a day or night session, and we will time the arrival around the Mets schedule instead of around hope.