Game, Set, Match!

Guess who was lucky enough to score tickets to the U. S. Open?! Woohoo!!

We caught the Long Island Railroad from Penn Station out to the grounds, which is directly across from where the Mets play. We opted for taking the train rather than the subway because it was a much faster trip. Bonus: you can drink on the train. Road beers!!

 

The train was packed, as there was also a baseball game happening that evening - the juxtaposition of fancy schmancy tennis fans squished onto the train with boozer baseball fans was highly entertaining. Upon arrival, it was super easy to navigate from the platform to the event gates, only about ten minutes before we were in!

(They check your train ticket after you exit the train and leave the platform, so hold onto it!!)

It was amazing how stuff was going on at the event OTHER than tennis. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but certainly not so much to do, see and experience. In addition to the 25 different courts where you can watch games, there are interactive exhibits, an overwhelming number of food and drink choices, multiple outdoor bars with funny themes and specialty drinks, weirdly intimate access to the sportscasters broadcasting from outdoors and several full-sized clothing shops. It was like a tennis themed state fair, subbing fancy Fan Experiences like racket testing and swing evaluation for the sketchy carnival rides. 

The view from the top of the stadium was amazing. You could see the entire grounds.

We had tickets to the evening session at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, scheduled to begin at 7pm. It had been raining on and off all day, causing intermittant delays, so they were way behind schedule by the time we arrived. Rolling in around 8 o'clock, we'd expected to be late for the session...but it hadn't even begun when we approached the gate! We had time to explore, have dinner and watch the tail end of the afternoon session before the main event even began. 

Our seats were pretty high up, but awesome. That cliche of "not a bad seat in the house" was absolutely true.

Andy Murray in the hiz-ouse!

It was really cool to get to see him play just a few weeks after he won Wimbledon. Go Andy!

 

The games were running so late that when we finally had to leave at 11:15pm to catch the train home they were barely getting into the third set.  And there was another whole match to play after the men were done!

  

Fun night! Now, homeward bound!