Tennis Champion Creating Player-Business Networking Event Around U.S. Open

Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a nine-time doubles major champion, likes to throw parties. Her latest effort wasn’t just a typical Manhattan gathering at some rooftop bar, instead launching what she hopes becomes tennis’ best business networking gala. And one that grows well beyond New York City and the U.S. Open to reach London, Paris and Melbourne.

“The idea was we wanted to throw this elevated event that I feel is missing from the tennis tour right now,” Mattek-Sands tells me. “A MET Gala moment, if you will.”

The concept launched in 2022 with Ladies Night in the City. It grew in 2023 ahead of the U.S Open into Game. Set. Ladies Night. It also brought in fresh sponsors to tennis.

“There are so many brands and sponsors that love tennis and we don’t have this elevated red carpet experience week to week,” she says.

The 2022 event began with Mattek-Sands and friend Shilpa Yarlagadda meeting in Miami and deciding to throw a party that August in New York City ahead of the U.S. Open. Then they started inviting friends, people with skin care products, folks in fashion, a high-level photographer. Mattek-Sands thought her friends on the tour would want to get involved, so she started inviting players. “If I have players, I need food,” she says. “So, I called a chef friend. That friend said I can call some media. It literally went from having a little get-together to having players and a fashion team.”

Last year there were 180 people with a full bar and chef Jose Luis Chavez from Mission Ceviche.

This year Mattek-Sands stepped it up, bringing roughly 215 to her invite-only event with nearly 50 players dropping by—Ons Jabeur to Danielle Collins and Paula Badosa to Stefanos Tsitsipas—including many getting dressed up for photos shoots with popular fashion photographer Radka Leitmeritz.

With sponsors such as the PTPA and Morgan Stanley
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, Mattek-Sands says the focus is supporting the founders’ foundations—including both her own and Yarlagadda’s—and keeping the event private to connect players and VIPs.

“This is a networking experience,” she says. “We are bringing together this bad-ass group of women to network and celebrate with each other.”

Keeping the event private allows the networking connections to build organically. And by offering a chance to get high-level fashion photos and experiences—Mattek-Sands flew in her favorite DJ from France—it entices the players to make the event part of their schedule the week before the main draw of the U.S. Open starts.

By inviting female CEOs and brand leaders, Mattek-Sands really wants to highlight the players in a different way and allow them to rub shoulders with brands interested in tennis. “That is the starting point right now,” she says. “I am finding I am enjoying this. It is amazing how excited the outside world is to be involved in tennis somehow.”

She says that a mix of brands, large and small, want to be a part of the event, to mingle with the players in a more glamorous setting. Mattek-Sands says she’s learned in her career the power and impact of networking. Doing so hasn’t always been easy for an individual athlete, so creating an event that allows players to meet those in the business world could help players in the future.

“For me, I want to put players in that position and have conversations and not do that with just your team around you,” Mattek-Sands says. “I want to invite the brand VPs, I want players to network with other women.”

This year she opened it up to the male players too, aiming to help all the players find new connections.

“If the PTPA is doing its job right, we are helping players past and present and future,” Ahmad Nassar, PTPA executive director, tells me. “It is really important that while they are still playing, they make their business connections and leverage the fact they are playing in a truly global sport.”

Sara Asatiani, Morgan Stanley vice president and the company’s Investing with Impact director, tells me that she wants to see women in sports seeing other women being successful in the business world. “You see her, you can be her,” she says, adding that 94% of women in c-suite positions played sports in their lifetime.

This isn’t a one-city concept for Mattek-Sands. She’s planning to add both Paris and London next year, ahead the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively. She hopes to collaborate with the events themselves and attract both global and local sponsors.

“I just feel like I’m creating an event I would want to go to and be a part of,” she says. “This is an opportunity to elevate the players.”