NYC’s only tennis bar infuriates fans for playing football

This bar served up a major error.

The self-proclaimed first tennis bar in the Big Apple stirred a racket on Thursday by prioritizing its weekly trivia night and return of NFL football over the nail-biting US Open women’s semifinals.

The East Village’s Thirty Love muted all of its TVs for a game — enraging tennis fans who wanted to hear the commentary and the players “grunt.”

“The theory was that when we came here it would be very tennis-centric, there would be a lot of tennis fans, and we would all be cheering on the game, and find like-minded people and connect and all that … We’re missing out. I am a little disappointed,” said Haley O’Neill, 39, an attorney from Texas.

O’Neill and a friend had trekked to the bar to watch Aryna Sabalenka defeat Jessica Pegula after hearing chatter about the tennis-focused venue in Central Park’s tennis crowd, but quickly packed up after realizing Thursday’s match wasn’t a priority at the watering hole.

Football was being played on the bar’s lower level, while trivia was being conducted upstairs — and to drive the knife in deeper, the game wasn’t even tennis-themed.

“This is a tennis-themed sports bar in New York called Thirty Love, and they have chosen to leave trivia on tonight when there are two women’s semifinals going on, and they have also chosen to put football on the television. Need I say more?” said O’Neill.

“I would definitely consider it better if I could hear Sabalenka grunt … We’re missing out. I am a little disappointed.” 

Thirty Love, which opened in February, had been advertising itself as the ideal spot to watch the US Open this year, even offering their own versions of the US Open’s signature Honey Deuces during the two-week tournament.

But on Thursday, the biggest television in the tennis-themed sports bar played the Cowboys and Eagles game, while the smaller screens played the US Open.

None of the TVs had sound on — with the only noise coming from trivia and loud music.

“We came here to watch tennis… We looked online for sports bars in the area that were showing the tennis matches,” said Banou Arjomand, 28, adding that they were bothered by the trivia noise: “It’s so loud … It’s sad.”

She, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend weren’t bothered that football was playing, but relented that it shouldn’t be prioritized at Thirty Love.

“I think the trivia is a bit distracting, especially if you market yourself as a tennis bar. Even the name of the bar is tennis-oriented. Thirty Love. The name is pretty tennis-branded, but the bar clearly is not. Or not enough,” said Paul Knöpfle.

Not all of the customers at the bar on Thursday were bothered, with most explaining they had come to the bar to play the weekly trivia game.

“We wanted to do trivia, but I was like, it’s the women’s semifinals of tennis, so I wanted to somehow have it on in the background, and be watching that, too,” said Lindsey Davis, 28.

The bar’s owner, Gabriel Aguilar, promised The Post that the US Open was only taking a backseat for trivia, which has cultivated a “loyal following” in the neighborhood.

“We still play tennis, we give tennis a precedent, but tennis tournaments aren’t on every week. Between upstairs and downstairs, we have close to 20 TVs. So the majority of it will be on tennis, but if we can have one or two on football, you know, football is the most popular sport in the country, we’re not going to ignore and pretend like football isn’t on, we’re going to play a little football, too,” Aguliar said.

The tennis matches will be back on the screens in full force — including sound — for the finals weekend, but with a catch.

“The whole first floor will be US Open with the sound on. And the whole second floor will be football,” said Aguliar.

Staff at Thirty Love expect the bar to be packed this weekend, noting that during Wimbledon, one party reserved 70 people upstairs just to watch the finals.

“We want to give the neighborhood not just tennis, but every day of the week, to have something,” manager Guillermo Rangel, 31, said.

“For us right now, it’s all an experiment still, but that’s what we want to do.”