How to Watch the US Open with a VPN

The US Open is a tennis Grand Slam tournament held once a year at Flushing Meadows in New York City. The competition is the final Grand Slam of the year and is played on a hard court. The tournament follows Wimbledon, the French Open, and the Australian Open.

The tournament starts on the last Monday of August. The play lasts two weeks, with the first weekend coinciding with Labor Day. The US Open hosts a range of events, including men’s and women’s singles, men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles, as well as junior and exhibition events.

The US Open is always filled with drama; last year’s edition was no exception.

The 2022 US Open produced two first-time winners at Flushing Meadows; the women’s singles final was won by Iga Swiatek, who handed Ons Jabeur her second Grand Slam final defeat of the year. In the men’s singles, Spanish hotshot Carlos Alcaraz defeated another prodigy, Casper Ruud.

There was to be no title tilt for previous champions Emma Raducanu, who crashed out in the first round, or Daniil Medvedev, who was dumped out by tennis bad boy Nick Kyrgios.

The 2023 edition is scheduled to start on August 28th. Up-and-coming American Frances Tiafoe, who lost in the semifinals last time out, and home favorite Coco Gauff who fell in the quarterfinals, will be carrying the flag for the USA.

Viewers in the USA

For the tennis fanatics in the USA, the broadcaster who holds the rights is ESPN. ESPN and ESPN2 will be showing matches on live TV from 11 am. If you are more of a fan, who supports an individual like Ajla Tomljanovic or Karen Khachanov, you may need to get an ESPN+ pass which gives you access to the outer courts. If you have the ESPN app, you can stream the tennis championships live on the go, as ESPN offers an iOS and Android app.

For those Tennis fans that have jettisoned traditional television and cable packages that include ESPN, there are a flurry of streaming services that provide live tv streaming services, such as;

• FuboTV
• Hulu
• YoutubeTV
• SlingTV
• Directv Stream

Although non of these services are free, many of them do offer a free trial, and if you wanted to stitch these free trials together, you could watch the whole of the tennis tournament for free!

Viewers in Australia

Tennis fans in Australia are perhaps the luckiest. Much like the Australian Open, the US Open is on free-to-air television on Channel Nine. Channel Nine now has a specific on-demand service that allows users with an Australian postcode to watch all of Chanel Nine’s content on 9now.

You can expect to catch the big matchups, like the men’s semifinals on 9now. But if you want access to the outside courts, men’s doubles, and women’s doubles, you’ll need to get an extra subscription to Stan sport.

Stan is significantly cheaper than any of its US counterparts and bills $20 AUD every month. Luckily they also offer a 30-day free trial, which is much more than you need for a two-week tournament, giving you a chance to see if Stan is for you.

Viewers in the UK

The past few years in the UK have seen Amazon run live streams of the US Open. Starting in 2023, the new home of the US Open will be Sky Sports as they attempt to muscle back into the tennis market.

Sky Sports offers a downloadable app for your devices to stream on the go. Unfortunately, Sky Sports is quite an expensive package and will need to be linked to your TV package.

How to watch the US Open online – for free

As we’ve discovered, streaming the US Open for free is a tough ask. It’s locked behind paywalls in the UK and USA, and flying to Australia just to stream the tennis for free seems ill-advised.

Fortunately, we have a solution that would allow you to stream the US Open for free from the comfort of your own home. All you need to do is download something to your computer that allows you to pretend to be in Australia.

That something is a VPN.

Using a VPN to stream live from New York

Sports events sell the rights on a country-by-country basis. Some countries’ national broadcasters may get the rights and put the events on free-to-air television, such as Nine in Australia, whereas other countries have private channels that buy up the rights and charge you to watch it.

If you tried to access the Nine stream from outside Australia, you would be met with a message saying that your IP address indicates you aren’t in Australia and thus can’t watch the tennis for free.

How and why a VPN helps

A VPN, or virtual private network, is a tool that makes it looks as if you are browsing the internet from a country of your choice. The way that it works is by assigning you an IP address in your chosen country. With this IP address, you can access all the geo-blocked content you wouldn’t normally be able to get.

Let’s say you want to watch the women’s final from the comfort of your own home. All you would need to do is select a server in Australia on your VPN, and then you are free to access Nines free streams to your heart’s content.

What to look for in your VPN

There’s a real smorgasbord of VPNs for you to pick from. Some are free and can be installed directly to your browser, whilst others work on subscription services and can be downloaded to your computer and even to your router. There’s a lot of information out there, and it can feel overwhelming.

• Speed – There is nothing worse than an unsynced stream. Hearing the dull thud of a topspin forehand as your favorite player connects with the ball is one of the little things that make watching tennis. That rules out free VPNs, as they don’t provide the speeds you need to stream in HD with synced audio. Most of the established VPNs now have servers optimized specifically for streaming, we will take a look at a few of these in the next section.
• Secure – Pinging your IP address into Australia to watch the US Open final isn’t something you want to be publicizing. Your VPN should protect you. Look for a VPN with a zero-log policy. This means your browsing history is regularly deleted, hopefully after each use. Look for a VPN with a kill switch, military-grade encryption, and DNS leak protection to keep your data safe.

• User-friendly – Look for an easy-to-set-up VPN with great customer support. Most VPNs are now very user-friendly, and you should be able to set it up without too much hassle. A lot of the premium VPNs offer 24-hour support, this is perfect if you ever encounter any problems while streaming.
• Effective – To stream the US Open for free, it is key to find a VPN that has servers in Australia. Before you sign up for your VPN, check with the provider where the servers are and make sure it meets your needs.

How to use your VPN

Best VPNs for streaming the US Open

Here are three of our recommendations.

ExpressVPN

Our top pick!

• Always evades internet control in the PRC
• Keeps ahead of the Netflix VPN detection algorithm
• Benchmark tests show excellent speed

Check best price ExpressVPN Review

ExpressVPN is one of our favorite premium options when it comes to paid VPNs. It has been around for 13 years and has over 3 million subscribers. ExpressVPNs boasts excellent privacy and security features. It has good legal protection, strong encryption, and a sufficient level of anonymity to keep you hidden.

ExpressVPN provides apps for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, it can even be installed on your Fire TV. One key advantage ExpressVPN holds over the field is that it produces an app for routers. This only counts as one install, so you can get all of your household devices covered by the router VPN.

Express VPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you subscribe and pay for 12 months upfront, they throw in an extra 3 months for free. ExpressVPN is one of the most expensive VPNs, but with their experience in the game, they are worth it.

Surfshark

• Smart DNS service, understands the technology
• Comprehensive security add-on package.
• No data throughput limits and has a no-logs policy

Check best price Surfshark Review

Surfshark has over 3200+ servers across 100 countries. Surfshark is a relatively new competitor. It launched back in 2018 and was set up in the British Virgin Isles – a VPN-friendly spot that is also ExpressVPNs base. Sursfhark offers unlimited bandwidth as well as a CleanWeb malware tracker and ad blocker, these added features make Surfshark one to check out.

One of Surfshark’s main features would be its price point – it is cheaper than the other two VPNs we have looked at, especially if you sign up for two years.

NordVPN

• More US city locations than its rivals
• Includes malware protection
• No-logs policy

Check best price NordVPN Review

NordVPN runs over 5500 servers across 59 countries. NordVPN is one of the most user-friendly out there. It offers split tunneling, a Tor interface, and a plethora of security features to protect torrenting, gaming, and streaming. NordVPN doesn’t keep logs, ensuring that your data is never stored. They have a much stronger cybersecurity setup than other VPNs and include malware protection kits.

NordVPN subscribers choose from three different levels of paid membership. The Standard tier includes all VPN services, malware protection, and an ad and tracker blocker. The Plus tier adds a password manager and identity theft protection to the mix and the highest level tier, the Complete tier, includes 1TB of encrypted cloud storage.

Each subscription gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee. Similar to ExpressVPN, if you pay for a year or two in advance, you can get up to 3 months free.

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