Aryna Sabalenka, the world’s number 1, was only in the third game of her match against Uzbek player Kamila Rakhimova in the third round of the US Open 2026 when she abruptly stopped her own serve.
The reason was neither an injury nor a technical problem: a spectator in the stands was smoking marijuana and the smell, as she herself acknowledged to the umpire, was “very strong”. She was not the only one to complain — Frenchman Adrian Mannarino had made a similar complaint days earlier.
With victory secured, Sabalenka explained the scene with a laugh: “Guys, you can smoke all you want, but please don’t do it near the tennis courts. It’s difficult to deal with the smell while you’re competing”. And she ended with the phrase that went viral: if they kept smoking that close, she too would end up “high”.