US Open

We had tickets to the US Open for Monday, but because of all the damage and anxiety caused by Hurricane Irene,  I didn't think there was even a remote chance that it would be ready to start on Monday.  After all,  the mass transit had been shut down;  there were downed trees and power lines and flooding all over the area.   But unbelievably, they opened on Monday, as scheduled.  Of course, that meant that many staff persons had to spend the night at the center on Saturday night in order to spend all day Sunday cleaning up debris and water caused by the storm and rain.  Based on the projections and predictions over Friday and Saturday, I thought there was no chance the Center would we operating.  What a surprise!

This year, we got a day pass, which meant we had access to all the courts, and stadiums, except not the really huge one, Arthur Ashe Stadium.  We had already had that experience and did not want to go there anyway.  The day pass allowed us to roam around freely, and see a variety of games, which was much to our liking.

Some of the smaller courts were very intimate, with just a few bleachers, and you could see 'all the action'.  I particularly enjoyed getting the full picture of what goes on on each court.  There are six ballboys/girls;  then there are about ten linesmen, a referee, two players, cameramen, etc.  I counted at least twenty people, not counting the two players, per court.  I had no idea it required so many officials.  The actions and interactions of the players with the ballboys was fascinating. I also learned that the ballboys and the linesmen have to try out, in order to be selected, and go through extensive training.

It was clear that the officials come from all over the world.  In fact, we sat at a lunch table with a lineswoman who came for the Open from South Carolina.  Most of the referees, who announced the game, had strong accents and were obviously from other countries.  I counted in the program well over fifty nations represented with competitors.

There are twenty courts and smaller stadiums, not counting Ashe, which holds 20,000.  I found the question of scheduling all those people intriguing.  It is clearly an operation that takes an entire year to produce!

In previous years, we have attended the semi-finals, in Ashe Stadium.   I learned so much more, and enjoyed this so much more than focusing all one's attention just on the "big name" players.  Those on the outlying courts were fun to watch as well.

I was really impressed by everything I saw relative to NY City and its ability to "weather a storm" and recover quickly!  No doubt that is one advantage of having so many people---a huge work force!