Trip to the 2006 US Open

This past Labor day weekend was the time for me to cross one more item from my check list of sports events to attend in person. Attending the US Open was one of the very first things that came to my mind when I got to the US. But it has taken 5 long years for me to be able to do that. 2 years ago, I was in NY during the US Open but did not get a chance to see the tournament. So, like always, here is a small narration of my trip to New York city to watch the 2006 US Open.

1) Since I took really long to book the tickets, by the time I looked for tickets online, I could get tickets for only one session during the weekend. That being a long weekend, almost all the tickets were sold out well in advance. So, I made the trip to the US Open with tickets for just 1 session. With the tournament organizers not publishing the playing schedule until the day before (due to which you don’t know until the day before as to who is playing in your session), we were keeping our fingers crossed hoping to see some big name players in our session. Finally, we found the day before that Nadal and Serena Williams were scheduled to play during our session.

2) But then it was Ernesto's turn to play spoil sport on the scheduled day. Due to the tropical storm, the entire day's play was washed out and there I was standing after having traveled 3000 miles from Seattle, only to find my session canceled. The tournament organizers offered 2 options - we can either get tickets another session during this US Open or hold on to the same tickets for next year's US Open. Fortunately, for me the next day's evening session tickets were available and we readily grabbed them with both hands.

3) I observed a very heart warming gesture during my flight journey into NY. There was this guy who was seated right in front of me. I did not notice him when he got into his seat. When the airhostess came around serving the usual snacks & drinks routine, after serving him, she said "Thanks for serving". I was obviously puzzled and when I peeked around, it was then I saw that he was dressed in the army uniform and looked like someone who was returning from active duty. And when the flight landed and as everybody was disembarking from the flight, the sounds of "thanks for serving us" and "Thanks for your service" filled the air, with almost everybody getting out of the flight taking their time to thank the overwhelmed marine. I was immediately taken back to how we react to when we see someone from the military back in India. Though we have always had high regard for them, may be the next time we meet someone from the army back in India, we should take a moment to thank them for serving & literally protecting us.

4) One of the interesting incidents to narrate - On the day when the tropical storm was playing spoilsport, me and my friend were both bored to death and were just wandering about the USTA premises taking pictures of the whole area. When you get off the subway train, the US Open premises is to your right and the Mets (baseball) stadium is to the left. Since we were bored, we walked our way to the other side of the subway to take some pictures of the Mets stadium. While we were at it, two men approached us and flashed their badges to us & said "NYPD"! For a second, I just froze and I thought to myself Oh...oh...This is not happening to me. What wrong did we do?. Then the officer proceeded We have been noticing both you guys for a while and the pictures you were taking. It looked a bit suspicious. Can we take a look at the pictures you took? It was then we both realized the pictures that we were taking - the Arthur Ashe stadium, the subway trains, the rail tracks, the general crowd and the Mets stadium and it all made sense - no wonder that they stopped us. They said they wanted to run our names against their database to see if we were having any pending arrests against our names. While one of the officers was doing the same, the other one (he was a perfect gentleman) stuck a conversation with us and soon we were discussing about college football, bcos the officer was a big-time Notre Dame fan, something I noticed it from the hat he was wearing. It really helped that I follow college football madly and he was pleasantly surprised that we knew so much about college football. As expected, the search came back empty and they wished us good luck in getting some tickets. Overall, it was all such a good experience.

5) The problem with scheduling of games at the US Open is that all the popular players play in either of the 2 big stadiums - the Arthur Ashe stadium or the Louis Armstrong stadium to which getting tickets anywhere closer to the court side is next to impossible (unless if you are willing to shell out 300$ per ticket). That just means one thing - that you will never get to see the popular players from up close. And there are 17 other courts inside the complex and is in these courts that you get to watch the players from really close quarters. It was in one such court that we were able to get a really close view of Mary Pierce and my friend got to watch Sania. (For Sania fans out there, check her pictures here)

6) Due to the change of schedule due to the weather, we got to watch the Sharapova - Likhovtseva game, followed by the James Blake - Carlos Moya game. The Sharapova game was a big disappointment bcos Sharapova finished off the match in real quick time & so didn’t get much time to drool over her. But from our seats which were way above in the stands, it was anyway not possible. The one thing that is hard to miss while watching a Sharapova game is the grunting that goes with her game. Even with ourselves sitting way up above in the stands, we could clearly hear her grunting. Has there been an official comparison of the grunting levels of her with Monica Seles? I am sure that would be one interesting comparison. But the Blake-Moya game was a treat to watch. The action is more pronounced and it was fun watching the game, with Blake, being the NYC local he is, getting tremendous support from the partisan crowd.

7) Our travails with NYPD didn’t get over with that one incident. On our way back to my friend's place, we got stuck in the elevator. Since the supervisor of the building wasn’t there to attend to the emergency situation, the NYPD had to called in, who in turn called the FDNY. We were put up inside the elevator for about 60 minutes before the FDNY folks got us out. The worst part about getting stuck in that elevator was that we were like a few inches away from the floor where we had to get off. We could hear what everybody was talking outside and rather than getting scared of claustrophobia (we were 5 in a really small elevator) or something, we all were joking around.

8) It was real hard to get tickets to that Agassi - Becker game (Agassi’s last game as a pro). We tried our best to get some tickets at the last minute but did not succeed. We were waiting outside when the match ended. When it was announced that Andre had lost, there was a collective sigh of disappointment that went through the air from the hundreds of spectators like me waiting to get inside and was followed by spontaneous ovation for the man who was one of those rare sportsmen who was able to combine style with substance. It was particularly overwhelming and spoke volumes about the man’s popularity that there was such a long applause from an audience which did not even get to watch the man play.

9) My return journey from NY to Seattle will be something to remember bcos it took me more than 18 hours of total journey time. With 18 hours, you could have easily caught a flight to India and landed there by then. My flight back to Seattle was from Philadelphia at 5:40pm and since I was put up in Queens, NY during my trip, I started from my friend's place in Queens at around 11:30am. Caught a subway to the Penn Station, then a NJ Transit train from there to Trenton in NJ, from there another train to downtown Philadelphia and finally, another to the Philadelphia airport. Got to the airport at around 4:15pm. But delays at both the Philadelphia and the Atlanta airports made sure that I got to Seattle only around 2:30am PST (5:30am EST). Phew...that was one long journey.

Apart from the Sania gallery, check out the general gallery too for other pictures.