Bill Ackman Got Smoked in a Pro Tennis Doubles Tournament
It’s fairly common to see obscenely rich people watching a match at the grass court at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Rarer, though, is the prospect of a billionaire on the court during a pro tournament — which is just what happened when billionaire Bill Ackman played in a doubles match at the Hall of Fame Open on Wednesday.
The 59-year-old, known for his activist investing and frequent tweeting, teamed up with actual tennis pro Jack Sock, a 32-year-old American who has won four doubles majors and a gold medal in the Olympics. According to Ackman’s post on X before the match, Sock received a wildcard invitation to the small-time but still pro tournament and asked Ackman to tag along. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, tournament organizers said that “in no way did Bill buy his way into the Hall of Fame Open. “I am playing the best tennis of my life,” Ackman wrote.
Apparently it wasn’t good enough. The Ackman-Sock team got smoked, losing their match in just over an hour. Ackman could hardly return the serves from the Australian team of Omar Jasika and Bernard Tomic. Though Sock did his best, they could not win a set.
Bill Ackman (59 y/o billionaire hedge fund manager) somehow bribed his way into a professional tennis tournament today
— Clemente (@Chilearmy123) July 10, 2025
It went about as well as you could expect: pic.twitter.com/YwfK2r5ptS
Not everyone in the tennis world was thrilled by Ackman’s intrusion. “This was the biggest joke I’ve ever watched in professional tennis,” said former champ Andy Roddick on his podcast. But at least it distracted Ackman from a stressful New York mayoral election in which he is trying to rally the city’s business class to put up the cash to defeat Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. What’s more, Ackman seems to have figured out how to be rich: by finally getting off his phone and doing something that only his station as a billionaire would allow him to do.