Taking Tennis Team to USOpen: Which day would YOU go?

Question

I'm considering taking mixed doubles tennis team members to USOpen 2008. Some team members have never been before.

Would you go day 2, 4, 8 or 10? What's the better learning opportunity: watching mismatched pros in short decisive matches or watching the top 10 players on center court?

Answer 1

Go day 2.  More matches more choices. Your Team can not only watch their idols beat down on low seeds, but they can watch Pro's practice and they can watch the very competitive, hard fought matches between less recognizeable yet still very skilled Pros.

Answer 2

I would go on day 2 so you can see the first round matches going around the US Open you can see both up and coming new players and watch the pros so either way you might get to watch both

Answer 3

Go on day 2 or 4.

Forget about Arthur Ashe Stadium unless you can get some very good seats. If it's just upper Promenade level seats, you'll be better off watching at home on television.

Get grounds passes and go to Louis Armstrong early and save some good seats in the general admission area. You can generally see some very good players there up close during the early rounds. The Grandstand is pretty good too but seats are limited and some are uncomfortable rolls of cement seating.

Go during the day and you can enjoy the night around town with the group.

If you have deep pockets, by all means, pay top dollar for good seats at Arthur Ashe for day 10.

But all in all, for players who have never been before, it will be a great expierence.

Answer 4

Repeating what has been said above, the earlier the better.

My favorite days are the first three days of the tourney.  The matches in Ashe usually have the top name draws, but you waste your time there as you can't see great from the upper levels.  Top 10 players have been known to play on the side courts the first days on occasion (not the superstars, but Nikolay Davydenko, David Nalbandian, Elena Dementieva types) and usually second level stars like Carlos Moya, Marion Bertoli, Sania Mirza, Nalbandian, Andy Murray etc will be involved in matches that are fairly competitive, particularly early in the match.  

If you'd like to see some doubles, I believe they've started doubles by day 4, otherwise I recommend day 2.  The matches can go up to midnight the first 2-3 days, and the crowds are less crazy the earlier you go. Usually you are no worse then 3 rows deep on the side courts and within 15-30 minutes usually you'll wind up in the front row.  If you get there just before the match starts, you usually can have your pick of which front seats you want.  You can literally sit behind the service line official on the smaller courts if you wanted to, which would give the players an excellent feel for how hard that can be to judge at times. The later in the tourney it gets, the less small court matches there are; they end earlier and there are more people trying to squeeze into the limited seating.

Answer 5

Very good question. Really tough to answer. I guess the first few days you have more choices.  But the last few, you get some great matches. Actually, a lot of the fun matches are in the middle.

I'd probably pick the last day and pray it doesnt rain.

Answer 6

You can find a million videos of old matches. I would go for the second Sat with them men's semis and women's final all things being equal.