TennisaGoGo
Semi-Pro
Random thoughts:
New Louis Armstrong Stadium is beautiful. It's like a minor-league baseball ball park with no bad seats and a completely open feeling so you can see tennis while walking around the stadium. They just have fix these hideous huge brown side panels. I don't know their purpose - maybe they're sound barriers but they are ugly.
Very little action after 9pm. There were only four matches scheduled after 7pm. Two on Ashe, two on Armstrong. Fed (Ashe) and Kyrgios (Armstrong) started at the same time, so you couldn't see both. Then it was Keys (Ashe) and Sharapova (Armstrong).
Seemed crazy to me that at 9pm there were 30 well lit courts in the cooler night air and 20,000 people milling around the grounds but NO TENNIS except for two women's matches in basically indoor stadiums! The US Open is all about 1am matches, but now those are exclusively played at Ashe, where the atmosphere is dead. I think after 9pm, they either want people in the on site restaurants or Ashe.
I had some extra Federer tix but they did not sell anywhere near face value, which really surprised me. Whenever I get tickets I only try to get face value for the ones I can't use, but I took a hit on last night's matches.
Still too much talking during matches. Many of my fellow NYers are self absorbed idiots and can't stand a minute of silence so they fill it with mindless banter. The problem the roof bounces the sound off (even when open) and it becomes contagious. It hurts the atmosphere and now Armstrong has the roof too.
They sell too many grounds passes. Long lines everywhere (food, bathrooms, water fountain) and the famous players are generally very tough to see unless you want to wait in an empty stadium in 97 degrees an hour before start time. Great smaller matches very close, which is always a blast, but available for free the week before at the qualies.
It's still a great day of tennis and I have to go since it's so close to me, but it's definitely now a tv event where before it was a tennis festival that was broadcast on tv.
New Louis Armstrong Stadium is beautiful. It's like a minor-league baseball ball park with no bad seats and a completely open feeling so you can see tennis while walking around the stadium. They just have fix these hideous huge brown side panels. I don't know their purpose - maybe they're sound barriers but they are ugly.
Very little action after 9pm. There were only four matches scheduled after 7pm. Two on Ashe, two on Armstrong. Fed (Ashe) and Kyrgios (Armstrong) started at the same time, so you couldn't see both. Then it was Keys (Ashe) and Sharapova (Armstrong).
Seemed crazy to me that at 9pm there were 30 well lit courts in the cooler night air and 20,000 people milling around the grounds but NO TENNIS except for two women's matches in basically indoor stadiums! The US Open is all about 1am matches, but now those are exclusively played at Ashe, where the atmosphere is dead. I think after 9pm, they either want people in the on site restaurants or Ashe.
I had some extra Federer tix but they did not sell anywhere near face value, which really surprised me. Whenever I get tickets I only try to get face value for the ones I can't use, but I took a hit on last night's matches.
Still too much talking during matches. Many of my fellow NYers are self absorbed idiots and can't stand a minute of silence so they fill it with mindless banter. The problem the roof bounces the sound off (even when open) and it becomes contagious. It hurts the atmosphere and now Armstrong has the roof too.
They sell too many grounds passes. Long lines everywhere (food, bathrooms, water fountain) and the famous players are generally very tough to see unless you want to wait in an empty stadium in 97 degrees an hour before start time. Great smaller matches very close, which is always a blast, but available for free the week before at the qualies.
It's still a great day of tennis and I have to go since it's so close to me, but it's definitely now a tv event where before it was a tennis festival that was broadcast on tv.
