Behind the scenes at the US Open

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Behind the scenes at the US Open: Player registration

The player registration desk is the gateway to the US Open, and Danielle Gooding and her four-person team makes sure there are plenty of smiles – and candy – to go around.

This office, located just outside Arthur Ashe Stadium behind the practice courts, is the first place a player goes upon arriving at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center each year. It’s here that players collect their credentials, pick up their gift bags and reunite with people they haven’t seen in the past 52 weeks.

“It’s a reunion here every year,” said Gooding, who has worked in the USTA Pro Circuit department since 2000. “There are a lot of hugs and kisses, and everyone is happy to see us. We’re the first people they see. It sets the tone for their two weeks here.”

When players, their coaches, family and guests arrive, they fill out two forms. The first is a standard registration form which, for players, gets forwarded to the accounting office to help with prize money distribution. The second is a legal liability waiver form. New this year, players took an Instagram portrait when they checked in, giving them a fun photo that can be shared instantly on social media and used on video boards around the National Tennis Center grounds.

Each player credential is loaded with a daily meal credit and gives them access to the locker rooms, player lounge and dining room, gym and salon. It also allows them exclusive access to the US Open Collection merchandise store for 30 minutes before fans arrive on the first 12 days of the tournament, and it affords them access to the on-site travel agent, concierge and transportation desk, where they can schedule cars to and from their hotels. In this year’s gift bag is a gift card, a set of Bose speakers, a US Open hoodie and T-shirt – the office asks all players their sizes when they submit their initial credential applications – and a baseball cap.

The player registration office used to be located in the command center inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and, later, the other side of the practice courts. It’s now in its second year in its current location, next to the President’s Gate entrance, and there are smiles all round when players set into the office, whether it’s to check in, grab a quick piece of chocolate or say hello.

Players’ children are given a “Future Star” credential and pets also have to have a pass made. Gooding remembers Venus Williams holding her Havanese, Harold, when the office needed to take a photo for the pup’s credential.

And it’s not just players and their pets who swing by the office. Celebrities including Ciara, Bridget Moynahan, Gwen Stefani, Kevin Garnett, Tara Reid and Henrik Lundqvist are frequent guests at the Open. Comedian and actor Jamie Fox recited an old "Saturday Night Live" monologue when he checked in in 2013, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour reviewed the staff uniforms when she first arrived on site.

“We’re like a little family,” Gooding said. “Federer has a very sweet tooth. He always comes in and starts eating Starbursts. Nadal is so, so nice. He gives kisses to everyone. [Francesca] Schiavone, [Tomas] Berdych, [Caroline] Wozniacki, Andy Murray – they’re all great. [Fernando] Verdasco always comes behind our desk and says hello. It’s fantastic.

“Players want to see photos of our babies if they remembered we were pregnant the year before, and they want to show us photos of their kids. We create their child’s first credentials, and that’s something they like to keep. It’s the last Grand Slam of the year, and there’s a lot of pressure on them, but they know when they come to the US Open that we’re going to take care of them.”

 

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Behind the scenes at the US Open: Construction

You don’t know that Lou Guadagno and his team are there, but you’ve undoubtedly seen their work.

Have you ever watched a match in Court 17? Bought a souvenir at the Octagon? Studied the giant draw board on the outside of Louis Armstrong Stadium? Guadagno’s unit was responsible for building, renovating or maintaining all of these areas – and much more.

In the weeks before the US Open began, around 80 carpenters, painters, tilers, masons and handymen helped get the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center ready for the hundreds of thousands of guests visiting from across the globe.

“The place has to open and it has to be perfect, and it always is. It’s stressful the entire summer, but nobody else can say they have a job as good as this,” says Guadagno, 31, who helps operate family-owned business Anchor, based on Long Island in New York. “For everything to come together, the team has to be good at a lot of things. You never know what you’ll have to deal with.”

Last month, Guadagno and his crew built a new 1,600-square-foot restaurant in the Club Level of Arthur Ashe Stadium in less than two weeks, printed and hung the new banners you see throughout the grounds, rebuilt the Mojito restaurant and repaved the Avenue of Aces walkway, which had previously been removed during the first phase of the roof construction for Arthur Ashe Stadium. They also renovated the counters, ceiling panels and carpets in dozens of luxury suites, installed new bathrooms and spent almost two weeks individually painting each of the 23,000-plus seats inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

During the tournament, Guadagno’s team is permanently located in a workshop just off a narrow corridor in the northeast corner of Ashe Stadium, next to the plumber and electrical shops. Once the US Open Qualifying Tournament begins, a 30-man team is on call 24/7.

As problems are identified throughout the event, a call center operator logs issues on an interactive map that is displayed on a large flat-screen monitor in Guadagno’s office, a room filled with building schematics, drills and boxes and boxes of screws. A manager monitors the location of staff members in real time via the GPS coordinates on their cell phones and then assigns the closest available member to assist.

On any given day, Guadagno’s team fields and responds to between 20 and 30 requests an hour. These calls could be anything from fixing a loose chair armrest or waterproofing a concession stand to repainting a white wall which had red wine spilled on it. After fans leave the National Tennis Center after the last night match has finished, Guadagno – who manages the team with sister Susan and father Larry, who first brought him to the tournament in the mid-1990s – and his team then spend around eight hours pressure washing all 47 acres of the ground ready for the next day’s play.

“From removing part of a key that had snapped off in the lock to an umpire’s locker room to building Court 17, we do it all,” said Guadagno, who estimates that he works up to 18 hours each day during the tournament. “Once it all comes together and you see people coming in and you see the finished product and you see people enjoying it, that’s when it’s special.”

 

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Behind the scenes at the US Open: Ball persons

On paper, the ball person’s job is to pick up stray balls, deliver towels and hand out bottles of water. In reality, they make a match run as smoothly and efficiently as possible while trying to remain invisible.

Selecting, training and organizing the crew of ball persons is the responsibility of Tina Taps and her team. Taps has been with the USTA for 35 years and has managed the on-court team at the US Open for the past 28 years.

The selection process begins with an open tryout every June. This summer, 405 applicants came to New York to be put through their paces in a series of running, catching and throwing drills. From this group, Taps identified around 200 people and invited them back two weeks later for an additional three days of workouts.

Taps’ team arranged match-specific scenarios and scores to see how players reacted in different situations. They rolled, hit and bounced balls into the nets at different speeds and angles to judge how candidates read bounces, and they tested the potential ball persons to ensure they know which end to throw the balls to.

“They have to have agility, and they have to have speed and good hands,” Taps said. “They do what they’re comfortable with, and then we train them to see if they can adjust and be better. It’s a physical job, but without them, we don’t get the job done. In order to feel comfortable running a three-week event, we need at least 250-275 people.”

In total, 104 new people joined the team this year, joining almost 200 returning ball persons from the previous year.

The ball persons always work in teams of six. There are two people assigned to work the net and two more at the back of the court behind each baseline. During the US Open Qualifying Tournament, one rookie is paired with one veteran at each of the three spots.

Once the main draw gets underway, the on-court teams are mixed. Ball persons under 18 years old do not get assigned to the night matches in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the more experienced ball persons are usually assigned to the stadium courts throughout the day. Each six-person team also includes an experienced crew captain.

New this year, the scheduling and court assignments are created electronically and displayed on four color-coded monitors inside the ball persons’ lounge located under the Grandstand.

The person’s name is written in either black (a veteran) or red (a rookie) and displayed inside one of three colored boxes. A green box means the ball person is more than 18 years old and can work any shift. A yellow box denotes the person is between 16 and 17 years old and cannot work more than 48 hours a week or more than six consecutive days. The blue box indicates the person is either 14 or 15 years old and cannot work more than 40 hours a week.

The final piece of the electronic system highlights where they can work on the court. A white box next to their name means they work the net, a red box means they’ll be positioned behind the baseline, and a black box means they can do either. A star identifies the crew chief within each team.

During the tournament, a team of 20 former ball persons roam around the field courts and evaluate the workers, looking for agility and speed as well as tennis intellect and how they handle situations. Logs are hand-written on paper and returned to the office for further evaluation. Next year, this will be done electronically in real time on iPads.

Up to 96 members of the ball person team will be on the courts at any one team – up to five matches can be played on any one of 16 courts early in the tournament – and the remaining ball persons either sit on bleachers on the Grandstand, known as ‘The Perch,’ or relax in one of two lounges under the stadium.

“Every day sticks out for me,” Taps said. “You watch a match and see how well they work, so there’s constant pride. These people are really amazing. The attentiveness and maturity that so many of these people have in dealing with the players is phenomenal.

“They take such inner pride in their work, and they’re excited about being here. They intrinsically want to do the job with such perfection that nobody knows they’re there. They do it with great professionalism.”

 

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