Going to the US Open (Advice?)

That's a definitely no. They are there to make as much money from you as possible. If you are looking for good deal, you won't find it there. Better off going to the various tennis specialty shops in the city.

Your best bet for strings is to buy them from ************** or Tennis Warehouse and have them shipped to your hotel. You won't pay tax that way. Also, prices for string in the city are not cheap either.


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Don't forget Flushing Chinatown is only 1 more subway stop from the Open site. You can always get cheap food there and come back (with stamp). You will be well fed for sure.
 
Yes. I suspect that everything being sold at the Open will be at premium. The only thing I see value in buying there are things that are US Open exclusives--things you won't be able to get through your standard retail outlets.
 
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I am a regular visitor to US Open from recent years so I will give you my little tips to get around and save money, especially since you seem to be coming from overseas and might be looking to save whatever you can.

So it's good to try food inside once in a while, but eating there regularly could be expensive, and for that you are allowed to take food provided its not a lot and that the bag you are taking is a small bag. Yes, don't take a bag which looks like the size of a book bag. Just take those regular 2 strings bags or even a polly bag which you can thrown later.

You can take your own water bottle, or beverage like Gatorade or Snapple or whatever, but make sure it is sealed. Yes, if it looks used, they won't let you take it in. So keep it sealed.

So when you are leaving your hotel to head to the Open, make sure to stop by a grocery store and grab some Gatorade or beverage etc if you want to save money on drinks, as inside everything will be $5 or $7 and you will be drinking a lot of it as its really hot in there.

That said, I would advise you to still eat once in a while inside at the Open. It does help the tournament and does help the vendors who pay lot of money to rent their facilities at the Open. It's a good karma all and all around.
 
I am a regular visitor to US Open from recent years so I will give you my little tips to get around and save money, especially since you seem to be coming from overseas and might be looking to save whatever you can.

So it's good to try food inside once in a while, but eating there regularly could be expensive, and for that you are allowed to take food provided its not a lot and that the bag you are taking is a small bag. Yes, don't take a bag which looks like the size of a book bag. Just take those regular 2 strings bags or even a polly bag which you can thrown later.

You can take your own water bottle, or beverage like Gatorade or Snapple or whatever, but make sure it is sealed. Yes, if it looks used, they won't let you take it in. So keep it sealed.

So when you are leaving your hotel to head to the Open, make sure to stop by a grocery store and grab some Gatorade or beverage etc if you want to save money on drinks, as inside everything will be $5 or $7 and you will be drinking a lot of it as its really hot in there.

That said, I would advise you to still eat once in a while inside at the Open. It does help the tournament and does help the vendors who pay lot of money to rent their facilities at the Open. It's a good karma all and all around.

Thanks for the tips.
Does your reusable water bottle have to be empty at entry? Can I fill it with flavoured water or will they make be dump it?
 
Does a small purse/wallet count as a bag? I might not have big pockets and I will have my debit card, ID and cell phone.

Of course I can bring a bigger purse/bag, but I was trying to avoid the long line.
We are going on Day 1 (and possibly Day 2), first thing in the morning. Will there be a long line then? If not, I'm probably overthinking this! ;)
 
Better to take sealed water bottle as half used bottle might get thrown away by the security personnel. They are inconsistent on this issue and they at times let people go inside with the bottle even though half-filled, but many times they will ensure that the bottle is sealed.

I would advice to take the sealed bottle.

Small purse like a lady's purse does count as a bag. So yes, you are better of without it. But I will be honest, the lines even though big, move really fast at US Open. I have noticed this trend that even though the lines could be big, they move really fast and you should be in within 5 mins or less even after being last in a big line.
 
Opening day is by far the busiest for early morning lineups. It does move quickly and you really won't miss much. Download the Usopen app to look at draws and live scores and figure out what matches you want to see during the day.
Move around from court to court. Don't just plant yourself at one court all day, you will really miss out on other amazing matches. Explore everything and enjoy your time at the Open. If you happen to hear someone belt out O Canada during one of the matches, that'll be ME!


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I got two courtside tickets, one in LA and one in the new grandstand. Not sure what I'm going to do the third day yet, and whether it's worth it to get AA night session tickets for the first two nights. I haven't gone to a night session before, so I'm wondering if it's worth going to it, or if I should watch it on TV. I most likely will have a grounds pass for the third day session.

As for the whole food thing, I brought in a plastic from a grocery store filled with snacks and a water bottle no problem. The security guy took a quick glance inside and sent me on my way.
 
I got two courtside tickets, one in LA and one in the new grandstand. Not sure what I'm going to do the third day yet, and whether it's worth it to get AA night session tickets for the first two nights. I haven't gone to a night session before, so I'm wondering if it's worth going to it, or if I should watch it on TV. .

You don't have to have tickets to attend the evening sessions. Just make sure you don't leave the grounds after 6pm and you can stay and watch all the matches except for Ashe. The Ashe matches are boring during the first week anyhow. 3 set blowouts against low ranked players.
Stay until closing and enjoy the excitement around ALL the other courts all evening.


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The bag rules at the Open are apparently not as strict as at Cincinnati. I've heard that there is no charge for watching the qualifying matches and practice sessions that are going on this week. Since on the website there are no tickets prices listed for these dates, can I assume that is true??

Speaking of being close to the players, at Cincinnati last year some nice (and nice looking) lady from Boston and I stood right next to the half fence on one of the outer courts and watched Alexander Averev play Sugita. When Zverev came over several times to use his towel which was hanging over the fence there we actually took a half step back to keep from being right in his face. At one point she said I wonder what he would do if next time he came over I said, 'Hello. How's it going?' Since he was losing the match I didn't recommend that.
 
Plan on going for first time on Wednesday. If I get grounds pass, what time will there be matches on outer courts until?
 
To be more specific, want to buy a day ground pass, can I stay on grounds for evening session too?

You wouldn't be able to enter the stadium, but you'd be able to watch that match from the big screen. You can stay to watch the remaining matches of the day session.
 
I'm going to be at the evening session Saturday night on 8/2. Can't wait, it'll be my first time. Tickets are ok, they aren't at the very top but certainly aren't courtside.

I saw someone say they allow you to bring in an empty plastic water bottle. So something like this would be ok? Also I see there a no backpacks allowed, but I assume a woman's purse is allowed as long as there isn't anything in there that isn't allowed.
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You wouldn't be able to enter the stadium, but you'd be able to watch that match from the big screen. You can stay to watch the remaining matches of the day session.

You can stay until closing. There are matches on the outer courts until about 11pm depending on if the matches are on time. The best matches we saw yesterday were the last 2 matches of the day


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I'm going to be at the evening session Saturday night on 8/2. Can't wait, it'll be my first time. Tickets are ok, they aren't at the very top but certainly aren't courtside.

I saw someone say they allow you to bring in an empty plastic water bottle. So something like this would be ok? Also I see there a no backpacks allowed, but I assume a woman's purse is allowed as long as there isn't anything in there that isn't allowed.
B0047GOONM_img1_lg.jpg

As long as it is plastic, you will have no issues with that bottle.


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I attended USO on Monday and Wednesday.
For Monday we pre-booked Grandstand tickets, lucking into $85 standard tickets in the 2nd row. Now that we attended I will say that we voluntarily moved back several rows for a better view. the first rows are sunk to a lower level than the court so it provides very weird viewpoint. I would suggest that 6-10 rows up would be ideal, if you go the pre-booking route. We only ended up watching one match in GS and simply chose any other matches we wanted to see on any other non-Ashe court.

For Wednesday we purchased a grounds pass.
Please note that we showed up at around 11:00 am on Wednesday and, after going through the entire ticket line and the security check, we got to the ticket counter and they told us they had no tickets other than the $390 courtside Ashe tickets. We were devastated after traveling all the way out there and going through the lengthy line. We wondered why they didn't they tell everyone at the start of the line that only the super expensive Ashe tickets were left. We moaned. We pleaded. "Aren't there ANY other tickets left? How could you be sold out so early in the day, so early in the tournament? It was to no avail. We hovered. We slowly waddled down the long ticket counter line, not quite ready to admit defeat. As we stood at the end of the long ticket counter we overheard another couple asking the last ticket counter agent about the lack of tickets. He said that there were no tickets but that there was a chance that more 'general grounds' passes would be released. Lo and behold, about 2 minutes later, the counter agent mentioned that there were grounds passes available. So, we snagged a couple.

One general comment on the temporary Armstrong stadium...it kind of sucks. Due to the set up it really only has one access point. This creates a line up, even when the stands aren't full. Then on change overs they let a batch of people in, but the people don't have time to make it around to the other side of the stadium, so there is always lots of jockeying and moving about during the match as people try to get to other areas during the the switch overs. The movement inevitably spills over as the players begin to play.

In the end I vouch for the incredible value offered by the grounds passes in the first week of the tourney.

ETA: I should add that by going in the first few days you get a huge selection of singles matches to chose from. We saw, Zverev v Coric; Kyrgios, Sock, Johnson, Shapovalov, Rublev, Bedene, Muller, Lorenzi and others. We could have easily watched Thiem, Fritz, etc. but simply didn't have the time and had to chose. :D
 
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Day 1: Had a 9am meeting in Philly so with travel and whatnot I didn't get to the grounds until 5:45. I didn't know until recently but the package I bought had 4 o'clock entry and that came in clutch as I bypassed the gigantic line of people waiting to enter at 6. I walked right over to what is serving as Armstrong this year and got into a line of a few hundred to see the last few sets of the Querrey match. By the 4th set I'd moved down to about 15 rows back as people were leaving to go to Ashe. It was gorgeous and seeing Querrey's serve that close was something else. After he closed it out I legged it over to my seat high up in Ashe to see Zverev close out set 1, and eventually the match. I was pulling for Mischa but though the crowd was unsurprisingly for Isner. The atmosphere was DULL in Ashe as you could tell people didn't have much of an interest in either player. I saw the first few games of Sharapova-Kenin match but was exhausted and I could tell early on that Kenin didn't have the goods to hang with Sharapova and frankly, watching her push Kenin around with 80 mile an hour serves from up high after watching Isner-Zverev and Querrey was putting me to sleep.
 
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