"It's giving match fixing" - Tennis fans react to reports of US Open draw ceremony being conducted without livestream

The US Open will reportedly not broadcast its main-draw ceremony publicly, conducting it behind closed doors instead. This development has been heavily criticized by fans, who believe there is a lack of transparency from the organizers of the New York Major.

For the uninitiated, during a draw ceremony, the top seeds are placed in selected positions to ensure that they do not meet in the early rounds. The unseeded players are then distributed accross the draw through a computer program.

A British journalist named James Gray, who works for the "i" newspaper, recently took to social media to claim that the procedure of drawing players at the 2023 US Open will not be shown to the fans live.

In response, many fans claimed that the US Open could influence the draw in order to achieve favourable match-ups during the fortnight. One user named "Rush" stated that a simple livestream shouldn't be a problem for a Grand Slam tournament.

"What is so hard about live streaming a draw honestly this should not be such an ordeal specially for a slam???" they tweeted.

Another user asserted that the organizers may be looking to give preferential treatment to some players in the draw.

"It’s giving match fixing idk," they wrote.

Meanwhile, the British journalist who posted the report initially felt the need to make it clear that the draws wouldn't be rigged. He did concede, however, that the US Open organizers could've made the event more interactive by livestreaming it to the fans.

"Obviously the draw isn't rigged. But it is the kind of thing that fans love to be involved with and can easily be turned into a decent bit of content to "launch" the tournament," he tweeted.

Here are some other reactions from the tennis universe:

The US Open is the only Major tournament that doesn't live stream its draw ceremony

The Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open

Three of the four Major tournaments have found a way to involve fans in the procedure of the draw ceremony. The US Open, however, continues to hold their draw behind closed doors.

The Australian Open and the French Open have always live streamed their respective draw ceremonies on their YouTube channel. Wimbledon, on the other hand, used to broadcast their draw ceremony via radio for several years, before recently moving to YouTube as well.

Many believe that if Wimbledon, a tournament known for its strict adherence to tradition, can be open enough to live stream the draw process, then the US Open should too.