Exclusive | Grindr dating app adds iconic ‘serving grunt’ notification sound for US Open

Grindr is adding a tennis grunt to its dating game. 

To celebrate the NYC-based US Open, Grindr, the world’s largest gay dating app, changed the sound of its notifications — until the end of September users hear a grunt whenever a potential suitor sends them a “tap” to signify they are interested.

The campaign, called “Serving Grunt,” was explained to the app’s 14 million users with the note, “Open season is upon us and this year, we’re serving grunt on (and off) the court.”

“We just heard the term ‘serve and grunt’ and we were sold,” Tristan Pineiro, Grindr’s senior vice president of brand marketing and communications, told The Post.

“And tennis is a fairly gay sport. There’s the short white shorts, there’s the grunting, there’s the ball boys.”

When singles on Grindr get a match, they normally hear a “bloop.”

Some app users were thrown off by the new sound.

“I sent my phone down for a few minutes and then all of a sudden I heard the sound of a man, almost like a moan or grunt, and I immediately thought someone had broken into my apartment,” said Rehman Bhatti, 32, of Chicago.

Grindr user Wyatt Stanley, 21, from Michigan, said, “The grunt scared me at first because I wasn’t even sure if it came from my phone.

“I think it’s really funny and I’m sure it brought lots of attention to the US Open from confused Grindr users.”

The idea to emulate the tennis grunt, which Pineiro said “can be quite sexual, but also funny,” came from a creative agency. The change is not affiliated with the Flushing, Queens, tournament — the final major of the tennis season — which ends on Sunday.

With the campaign, Grindr is taking a swing at changing the stigma around sports being only for heterosexuals, as more than 100,000 of its users list tennis as an interest on their profiles.

“There is a sort of bro-ish nature around sports and that was something that we just wanted to poke at,” Pineiro said. “A lot of gay people are big fans of sports.”

At this year’s US Open, the only gay players were women.

“At the moment, there are no out male tennis players,” Pineiro said. “And we just think that’s a bit strange.”