I’ll talk about the highs first.
I spent so much time in the bowels of Arthur Ashe stadium that Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Roger Federer became common faces to me. I barely found myself blinking when I saw them day after day. I also found myself in the company of numerous other players like Xavier Malisse, Donald Young, and Tim Smyczek. During the rain delays early on in the tournament, you could find everyone in the player lounge or in player dining. The one day I went into player dining, literally every seat was taken by all the players and their entourages. Imagine every WTA and ATP player sharing communal round tables with their teams and colleagues.
I attended the star-studded BNP Taste of Tennis event where the players themselves serve bite-sized portions of gourmet food items to a special list of attendees. It’s a party scene and something I don’t really dabble in but there were definitely some interesting characters there that I did not see on site. I also did a similar thing at the Aces Restaurant inside of Ashe where we got to taste the best food offered at the U.S. Open. I have to say I was impressed and since food is one of my favorite subjects, I really enjoyed the experiences!
Tennis Channel sat me down in their studio upstairs in the player lounge and had me answer questions for their “Best of Five” program. Didn’t feel too much pressure and hope that my responses or expressions made the final cuts! Funny enough, a different Tennis Channel producer saw me hitting some forehands during a Wilson racket testing event, mic’d me up, and started rolling footage as I gave candid feedback into the mic about how the rackets were feeling. Twice on film for Tennis Channel? I could get used to that…
I attended the Mats Wilander Foundation event at historic West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. I wore all white and 10sballs.com gave me a show-stealing wood Dunlop Maxply to use during the hitting part on the famed grass courts. Mats Wilander himself inspected and held the racket in front of everyone, he said it was incredible. Jonas Bjorkman and Thomas Johansson also showed their appreciation for it. When I hit one on one with Jonas I was able to hold my own with a wood racket, even at net against the former world #1 and Grand Slam champion.
Now let’s shed some light on the lows of the 2013 U.S. Open.
Because the USTA has an odd system of determining which publications get accreditation, I was without a media pass for the final 8 days of the tournament. Didn’t make sense and caused a lot of issues. As a global enterprise, 10sballs.com should be put through a different system than a local NY, NJ, or CT paper. Another piece of evidence was that other companies were given multiple desks/workstations, up to three in some cases, and yet I was given none.
The media center it self was outdated, cramped, poorly stocked. I’ve been to plenty of other tournaments that are no where near as monetarily successful as the U.S. Open yet they possessed much better and quality media centers. Just getting into that room was like fighting your way through a fire-breathing dragon to get the tallest spire because of the amount of security blockades set up. The 8-year-old video monitoring systems above the desks would often freeze, glitch, or crash, if they even worked at all to begin with. The night staff wouldn’t clear out the waste bins.
Did I mention the security was terrible? Poorly trained staff, not knowledgeable about tennis at all, deathly afraid of losing their jobs if they let anyone pass their gates, and most of the time not even paying attention.
As a final low, Federer lost early and the matches were not very compelling. This became apparent to me when a coaching friend of mine revealed to me that most of the players don’t like the tournament and simply show up to get a pay check then leave. If you take a look at the first week, you could pretty much count on one hand how many matches were actually really exciting and then on four hands how many were bagels or tanks.
Despite these less than enjoyable moments, I think my time in New York was something special. I became a New Yorker for three weeks, riding subways, taking cabs, walking the streets. The city never stops, never sleeps – and I had the perfect job to learn and incorporate that ideal into my life. I’ll be able to take that experience to the grave, even if I never live in the city full-time. A very cool thing indeed. At the end of the day, the real theme of the U.S. Open is that people are here to enjoy the entire experience of the city as well as the tennis.
Topics: Andy Murray, Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Donald Young, Jonas Bjorkman, New York tennis news, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Thomas Johansson, Thomas Shubert, Tim Smyczek, US Open, Xavier Malisse
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