The US Open is the fourth and last of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

The US National Championships was born a few years after the drafting of the rules of the game of tennis, dated February 1874, and published by the British major Walter Wingfield Clopton in the book A portable Court of Playing Tennis which codified the new sport. It didn't take long for tennis to be exported to North America. Already in the year 1874 the first matches were recorded in the USA.

In 1881 the United States National Lawn Tennis Association was created, which later became the USTA, the federation of USA tennis.

With the start of the Open Era and the gradual opening of all tournaments to professionals, the US National Championships change their name to the US Open.
The 1974 edition is the last to be played on grass. Tournament organizers decided to play the US Open on the Har-Tru the following year.

The following year the tournament decided once again to switch surfaces and move away from Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows Park at the USTA National Tennis Center. For the first time in the history of Grand Slam tournaments it is played on hard courts. Since 2020 the surface of the US Open is Laykold, before that DecoTurf was used.

The main court is Arthur Ashe Stadium, a 24,000-seat stadium that opened in 1997. It is named after Arthur Ashe, the African-American tennis player who won the inaugural US Open final in 1968. The second court is the Louis Armstrong Stadium, opened in 1978, completely renovated from the original Singer Bowl. The third largest stadium is Grandstand Stadium, which is attached to Louis Armstrong Stadium. Courts 4, 7, and 11 each have a seating capacity of over 1,000.

All courses used by the US Open have television coverage. In 2005 all tennis courts at the US Open were colored blue to make it easier to see the ball on television, the other courts remained green. The USTA National Tennis Center was renamed in honor of tennis pioneer four-time tournament champion Billie Jean King during the 2006 US Open.