Honey deuces

I was lucky to be at the vast Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York for the U.S. Open on Wednesday this week. The tennis stadium is situated in Queens within the Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.

Our seats were superb just behind the player’s entrance and we watched Aryna Sabalenka destroy Russian Polina Iatcenko in about 50 minutes and then witnessed Carlos Alcaraz get better and better as the game wore on against the Portuguese Jaime Faria. Alcaraz won in 4 sets.

If you’ve ever been to the stadium then you will know it is vast and getting out of there makes Tottenham’s Stadium seem like a toddlers maze, and games can last until the early hours. Fortunately the Alcaraz game ended at 11.30 and we got a train back into Manhattan with only a couple of minor hiccups.

By the time I hit the sack and wrote my brief Charlton ‘report’ I had been up 21 hours so it was a long day.

The Arthur Ashe court is huge, the largest tennis arena in the world. It holds 24,000 although it was pretty empty for the Sabalenka match.

What struck me, and I have been a couple of times before, was the noise around the stadium during points.

I saw this article today, and around us in what were not cheap seats, people were much more interested in taking photos of each other or simply chatting, and this was New York remember, so the locals don’t know hwo to whisper.

At one quite critical stage of the Alvarez game a couple stood up in front of us, and the women walked down to the front and started to pose as if she was on a Paris catwalk, I presume boyfriend took out his foldy tripod and rattled off about 100 photos of her in a variety of postures.

All the while in front of them Alcaraz and Faria raced around the court smashing the ball into the corners.

I stared at the back of the bloke’s head and shouted ‘sit darrnn’ which made not the slightest bit of difference.

During points fans are walking around the seats, waving at people and congregating in gangways. A lot of the suites and boxes were not occupied by stuffy investment bankers, but by groups of people hosting what looked like mini drinks parties. I think it is what people call a scene, but the two athletes chasing around at break-neck speed and serving at 145mph were secondary.

And of course after every game the DJ comes on to play the latest rap tune. It really is not cricket, or tennis!

A few players have commented on the noise during points, so different compared to Wimbledon, but I assume they just adjust accordingly because the noise never ceases.

It is a crazy experience, possibly not helped by the iconic $28 honey deuces cocktails, which taste like a fruity energy drink, but will give you a headache, even if the people around you don’t.

Still, the Open is an experience and we had a fun time and great seats.