{"id":882821,"date":"2026-09-04T08:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T08:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/882821\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T08:22:13","slug":"us-open-2026-news-draftkings-party-triggers-integrity-investigation-serena-williams-and-aryna-sabalenka-attended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/882821\/","title":{"rendered":"US Open 2026 news: DraftKings party triggers integrity investigation; Serena Williams and Aryna Sabalenka attended"},"content":{"rendered":"

The International Tennis Integrity Agency is investigating a pre-US Open<\/a> promotional party that may land some of the sport\u2019s biggest names in hot water.<\/p>\n

Leading tennis<\/a> journalist Ben Rothenberg on Friday (AEST) released a report diving into the DraftKings event hosted by \u201cwell-connected Miami nightlife impresario\u201d Dave Grutman on the eve of the grand slam tournament in New York.<\/p>\n

Serena Williams<\/a>, Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka<\/a>, Mirra Andreeva and Taylor Fritz were among the big names that attended and posed for photos in front of the DraftKings wall.<\/p>\n

DraftKings is an American betting company listed as a \u201cpartner\u201d of Grutman\u2019s on his website.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir arranged appearances at a promotional event for a company that offers tennis betting could violate anti-corruption rules, and earn them discreet warnings from the ITIA to be careful about their appearances of affiliation with betting brands,\u201d Rothenberg wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the players were not directly compensated by DraftKings for appearing at its party, the appearances and photo-ops may have run afoul of Tennis Anti-Corruption rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Grigor Dimitrov and Serena Williams at the DraftKings party.\u00a0Instagram<\/p>\n

Rule D.1.b states: \u201cNo Covered Person shall, directly or indirectly, facilitate, encourage and\/or promote Tennis Betting\u201d; and D.1.q reads: \u201cNo Covered Person, whether personally or via another arrangement or legal entity, may endorse, be employed, sponsored and\/or otherwise engaged by a Tennis Betting Operator.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ITIA spokesperson confirmed the investigation with a statement to nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware of this event, and we are looking into the circumstances and details,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

Former American players\u00a0James Blake,\u00a0Mardy Fish, and Bob Bryan\u00a0have all been previously penalised for being paid to promote gambling companies.<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au is not suggesting that any of the players were paid to attend the DraftKings event.<\/p>\n

Before the story broke, world No.1 Sabalenka fired up at an American reporter for asking about her off-court life following her second round 6-1, 6-1 cruise over Polina Iatcenko.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the testy press conference exchange played out.<\/p>\n

Q: Hi Aryna, well done tonight. I\u2019m sort of curious, how are you finding like your mood now that the tournament has started? Obviously, last week it\u2019s lots of parties and fun and stuff like that. Are you\u2026<\/p>\n

A: Oh, you guys are like a joke, party is fun. Like, why would you even say that? Why would you even think about that? Like, what kind of question is that? Like, just because I posted like some activities with brands, and you think that I\u2019ve been partying, not training?<\/p>\n

Q: I\u2019m not suggesting that you\u2019re partying, I\u2019m saying that there are a lot of events and things like that. I\u2019m not saying you go to the parties.<\/p>\n

A: You literally said that.<\/p>\n

Q: Excuse me? For everyone who\u2019s not clear, I\u2019m not suggesting that Aryna is having fun at these parties. I\u2019m saying that she makes a lot of appearances and there\u2019s a lot to do and lots of events, OK?<\/p>\n

A: OK. Move on.<\/p>\n

Q: So now that the tournament started, do you find you\u2019re getting quite serious and combative?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sabalenka in action\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

A: Oh yeah, I wasn\u2019t serious before that. Next question.<\/p>\n

Watch the US Open on Stan Sport.\u00a0Add the Stan Sport package<\/a>\u00a0to watch every point of grand slam tennis live and on demand with no ad-breaks in play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The International Tennis Integrity Agency is investigating a pre-US Open promotional party that may land some of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-882821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}