Katie Boulter has revealed she will not wear her wedding ring during matches at the US Open, having married fellow tennis star Alex de Minaur this summer. The British No. 1 tied the knot on the day of the Wimbledon final in a secret ceremony with close family and friends.
Learning from Andy Murray's mishap
Boulter enters the US Open for the first time as a married woman but has taken a different approach to some players by not displaying her ring on court. She has followed the example of Andy Murray, who similarly opted to tie his ring to his shoelaces before losing it.
Ahead of the US Open, Boulter was asked whether she intended to wear her new ring while competing, and the 30-year-old cited Murray's mishap as a reason to think twice.
"I learned from Andy. I'm not going to do that," Boulter told the BBC. "I don't wear it. Not during matches."
Murray's lost ring and Sabalenka's approach
Murray wed his wife, Kim, in 2015 and kept his wedding band tied to his shoelaces. In 2021, he was unable to locate his trainers and posted a public appeal online, appealing for assistance in tracking them down.
Aryna Sabalenka became engaged earlier this year to Georgios Frangulis, a multimillionaire businessman, and took a different approach, proudly displaying her engagement ring shortly afterwards at Indian Wells.
"It feels super comfortable and shiny. We double-checked if there was a possibility to lose the diamond, and there was none," she said at Indian Wells, a tournament she won. "I was pretty confident wearing it, hoping it might even distract my opponent."
Boulter's career and wedding celebrations
Boulter, currently ranked world No. 72, has previously climbed as high as No. 23. She reached the third round of the US Open in 2023 and has matched that achievement at both the French Open and Wimbledon.
She spoke warmly about her intimate wedding - one of several ceremonies she shared with Australian partner De Minaur. "One [ceremony] was in the U.K. for my nearest and dearest. It was like eight people - very, very small, very much for my grandpa," Boulter explained.
"It was a huge contrast to the Italian wedding, which had all of our closest people, all of our friends, and was a little bit more of a party and a lot of fun."
