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Beginner’s Guide to the U.S. Open

June 27th, 2009 admin 1 comment

It’s one of the world’s premier sporting events: the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, held in Flushing Meadows, Queens, and it’s as prestigious as they come. Need to bone up on knowledge about the U.S. Open so you sound like you know what you’re talking about? Here’s the essential information.

The U.S. Open is a two week tournament. It’s held each August and September at the USTA National Tennis Center. This year’s tournament dates are August 31 to September 13.

Nomrally, general public tickets go on sale in early June

Here’s a rundown of how the tournament itself goes down. Players compete in women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles. The action is carried live by networks such as CBS and USA Network as wel as several international broadcasters. The matches take place both day and night, with the day games starting at 11 a.m. and the night games starting at 7 p.m.

The games are held at several venues at the USTA National Tennis Center. The top seeded matches as well as the finals are held at the U.S.Open Arthur Ashe Stadium.

One of the smaller venues is the Grandstand, which is open to anybody who has a grounds pass.

If you want to really get close to the action, field courts are the way to do so. Especially in the tournament’s oening few days, they are the best places to watch the sport.

By the way, as you’re investigating the goings-on at the U.S. Open, don’t neglect the qualifying tournament, which has its own kind of excitement, and is normally held a week before the main tournament itself.

A relatively cheap way to see the tournament is through the grounds pass or grounds admission. It’s only available, however, for the tournament’s first eight days. It offers access to those matches played in the field courts, parts of the Louis Armstrong Stadium, as well as the Grandstand. This can often mean a good five or more matches–perfect for the avid tennis fan. However, grounds admission doesn’t give admission to Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The schedule for the 2009 tournament goes like this: August 25 to 28 is the Qualifying Tournament; August 29 is Kids’ Day; August 30 is Open Practice Day; August 31 to September 13 is the main tournament; September 13 is the men’s championships; September 12 is the women’s championships.

So now you know what you need to know to be a U.S. Open expert.

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Change is Always In the Air at the US Open

June 23rd, 2009 admin No comments

The 2009 US Open tennis tournament will be starting August 25th in Flushing Meadows, NY and will feature the finest players in professional tour tennis today. The mens’, womens’, and doubles matches will, in may cases, be close contests on the hard court surface. The Decoturf surface that covers the courts at the Flushing Meadows tennis complex has much less rebound than other hard court surfaces. This reduced rebound ultimately means that serve-and-volley players have a much higher rate of success on this surface than on other hard court surfaces, unlike at other professional tennis tournaments

Another unique feature of tennis play at the US Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows is the instant-replay of line calls . The instant-replay feature, using the Hawk-Eye computer system, started in 2006, allows a three-dimensional re-enactment based on multiple camera views, of the actual bounce of the ball on the tennis court. It is said that the system is accurate to within five millimeters (approximately one-fifth of an inch). Fans, players, and umpires at the US Open tournament at Flush Meadows are all able to simultaneously see this instant replay re-enactment of the bounce of the ball.

Starting with the 2009 US Open tennis tournament players will be allowed up to 3 challenges per set as well as one additional challenge in case of a tiebreak. Successful challenges will not reduce the number of challenges left to a player in any given set. According to statistics provided by the US Open professional tennis tournament official website, around 30% of all player challenges were overturned since the instant-replay rule began in the 2006 tournament. The Hawk-Eye system is currently only available on the two main stadium courts, the Ashe and Armstrong courts.

Beginning in 2005, all of the courts at the US Open tennis tournament complex at Flushing Meadows were changed to have blue inner courts and green outer courts, to allow players to see the ball better during play. Even though all courts at the tennis tournament complex are lit (to allow night-time play for prime-time television audiences), this two-tone color scheme change helped to let players see the ball better during the fast-paced play that characterizes today’s professional tennis world. When serves on the men’s tennis circuit often top 140 miles per hour, any small advantage is good to be able to see the tennis ball. Players today serve and hit harder than ever, and as a result, the ball is harder to see than it was in past decades.

Roger Federer is the heavy favorite to win the 2009 US Open professional tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows tennis tournament complex, Federer is by far the most dominant player on the men’s professional tennis tour, and is also the five-time defending champion of the US Open. If Federer manages to hold onto his title, he will have 6 US Open championships to his credit, more than any other professional male player since Bill Tilden in the 1920s. He is currently still tied with Pete Sampras and Jimmy Connors, but, unless something unusual happens, Roger Federer is about to make men’s professional moder-era tennis history. If Federer can win this year’s US open plus two more, he will have the most US Open titles of any player in tennis history.

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U. S. Open Tennis

June 12th, 2009 admin 1 comment

U.S. Open drew record crowds, as more than 600,000 fans watched one of the most popular tennis tournaments in the world. In the end it was Roger Federer and Andre Agassi battling it out on the men’s side. Federer prevailed, but only after Agassi pushed him to the limit. But that’s the way it is when the top champions of the tennis world descend on Flushing meadows. The lucky few with U.S. Open tickets have seen greats like Venus and Serena Williams, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, and Boris Becker grace the courts at the USTA Tennis Center. It’s two weeks of championship tennis and world class action, and it’s waiting for you with U.S. Open tickets from US OpenTickets.org

The U.S. Open is America’s most attended sporting event. We specialize in buying and selling sold out US Open tennis tickets. In the past the US Open has had such champions as Jimmy Connors, John MacEnroe, Pete Sampras, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova See your favorite tennis players including Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewit, Serena and Venus Williams and Lindsey Davenport.

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