2011 US Open Succeeds In Face Of Hurricane and Four Washed Out Sessions

Written by: Staff on 14th September 2011

2011 US Open Succeeds In Face Of Hurricane and Four Washed Out Sessions |

More than 650,000 Enter the Grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with the Highest-Attended Labor Day Weekend and Men’s Semi-Finals and Final in History

Overall Ratings on CBS Sports Match Best Ratings Since 2007

The USTA today announced that despite facing a hurricane at the on-set of the tournament and then overcoming two full days of rain resulting in the need to reschedule the final five days of the tournament, the US Open still attracted more than 650,000 fans to the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The tournament also saw increased television ratings on CBS Sports and numerous traffic records set at USOpen.org.

Attendance highlights included the all-time Labor Day Weekend attendance (Saturday, September 3 through Monday September 5) of 186,186. The men’s final, featuring Novak Djokovic capturing his first US Open title over defending champion Rafael Nadal on Monday, September 12, also set the all-time attendance record of 24,713 in Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds of the National Tennis Center, as did the men’s semi-final attendance of 24,071 on Saturday, September 10. In all, 11 sessions of the 2011 US Open sold out.

53.1 million viewers watched all or part of this year’s US Open on CBS Sports, up 17% from last year. Ratings overall for the US Open on CBS Sports, which includes broadcasts of Labor Day Weekend and Finals Weekend saw overall ratings increase over the past three years, matching the ratings of 2007. This year’s women’s singles final on Sunday, September 11, achieved a 3.3 national rating, with 13.1 million viewers watching all or part of the final, an increase of 93% from viewership of the Clijsters-Zvonareva final which aired in primetime on Saturday last year. In addition, the men’s singles final was seen in all or part by 11.8 million viewers.

Despite two days of rain interruption, USOpen.org set a new site record for unique visitors (15,421,675) surpassing 2010’s total by 24%, and total visits to the site topped 51 million (51,868,345), the second most in history. Additionally, more than 3.1 million hours of live streaming was viewed, an increase of 12% from last year’s record. USOpen.org also saw record mobile traffic across its mobile-friendly website (m.usopen.org) and the official iPhone and Android Apps, with more than 84 million page views (84,350,596), a 173% increase over 2010.