US Open 2011 Photos

I haven't been here in so long because of going to the US Open, being sick for a week afterwards and my brother's computer giving him problems. I'm going to have so much catching up to do with all my blog friends. I have started my picture project of this event and just wanted to share some of the better ones with you all. It seems like I am a bit obsessive with the picture taking when I'm at these matches but for every 10 photos I take only a couple come out good. The first 3 are of my favourite player, Austria's Jurgen Melzer. I kind of semi stalked him after the match and got the one of him with a couple of other people having their photo taken with him. The Juan Carlos Ferrero ones didn't come out that great because it was night time. You aren't really supposed to use a flash while they are playing. The bottom photo is of the guy who first got me into tennis 5 years ago - Tommy Haas. I missed part of his match because I was watching all of the Petzschner 5 set one - should've left after the 4th.

Because of Hurricane Irene our power was out for 4 days and we were unable to recharge our batteries until Wednesday night. If I had been more conservative with the picture taking on Monday my 2 batteries probably would have lasted all of the first 2 days but they were dead by Tuesday afternoon. I had a regular 35mm camera and film with me just in case this happened but unfortunately wasn't even able to use it because I forgot that it takes a special battery and had waited until we got to the tennis center to put batteries in it - it takes 1 lithium, not AA. If I had grabbed our 80's camera too, I could have at least used this even though there isn't any zoom on it, not that the zoom on the 90s one is that good.

At first in the bus terminal - we couldn't take the train because service of New Jersey transit was suspended- I bought 2 of those disposable digital cameras at one store. They were kind of expensive- 45.oo for 2. I went into another store, saw the 4 pack of film which I bought then returned the disposable ones which I totally regret now. I obviously was not thinking clearly during this whole day. It turns out that it would have been cheaper to get like 6 of those disposable ones than it was the way that I did things. I had all the film put on a discs so I'd be able to send the best shots to the computer than to Walgreens photo to have printed out. I had put off looking at them because I feared that there would be alot of crappy shots which turned out to be right. Very disappointing.

This whole camera incident feels like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone as does the fact that we were the only block in our small town to actually lose power during that Hurricane. We had to throw out like 80.00 worth of meats and dairy products. I'm just glad that I was smart enough to think to charge all our batteries on Saturday so at least we were able to take digital photos on Monday and part of Tuesday. It's been like 6 years since I've last used a regular camera. I didn't go digital until the end 0f 2008. I can't believe that I resisted the technology for so long. And I also looked into the bus schedule on Saturday because I was afraid that the trains might not be running. We had to walk 15 minutes to the bus stop which we wound up doing for the 5 days. We weren't even sure when the trains starting running again. The money that I saved on parking in the train lot wound up going towards the film but that was only a small portion of what I wound up throwing away because of the power outage. Things could have been much worse so I shouldn't even complain. We didn't get the flooding like many towns in Jersey did. And thank goodness that New York had their subway system up and running in time for us to get out to Queens to attend this event.

I hope that everyone has been well lately. I will have much more on our US Open experience in the future. It's nice to be back here. I'm looking forward to reading and commenting on your posts.

US Open 2010 Part 2

These are some of the other players that I saw at this event. Top - Bottom - Russia's Youzhny, Spain's Tommy Robredo, Sweden's Robin Soderling and also from Spain, Juan Carlos Ferrero.

I did some match hopping for certain players but stayed at whole matches for others. Last year I did not do the former. There are too many players that I like now so it's impossible to see their whole matches or even any of them. I had to sacrafice a few so I could see all of Melzer and Fish.

Food is pretty expensive at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center. My brother and I wound up splitting the burgers (8.50) and chicken sandwiches(9.75). We alternated nights. He also got the waffle fries(4.50). The Snapple Peach ice tea was 4.75 a bottle. We got one a piece each day.

A few of our dinners were eaten during matches. I packed a lunch of a peanut butter sandwich and Nutrigrain bar. We had grapes and water for a snack before we got on the line.

Our am routine was up at 4:30 to catch the 5:59 train. It was half hour late one day. We got into the city by 6:45. My brother had a donut and milk at Zaros then we walked to Times Square from Penn Station 2 mornings and the other days just took the subway - 1 - to get to the 7 that goes right to the tennis center in Queens. After the hour and 15 minutes in line before the gates opened we'd buy the daily schedule, go to the bathroom and look around at the courts to see some of the players practice. Then we would go our seperate ways, except for on Saturday when we both spent all day at Armstrong to see 3 matches - Soderling, Wozniacki and Fish.

PM- we would get home between 9:30 and 10:40, that was the last night. We had to recharge our camera batteries, shower, put the tickets and money in my purse, make up a list of matches of interest on 2 index cards so we'd know where each other would be. We don't have cell phones.I had the tennis on tv but we were too busy to focus on this. We would get only between 4 and a half and 5 hours of sleep each night. Very long days but well worth it despite getting very sick.

I forgot to mention the nice girl from Trinidad yesterday. I feel bad that I didn't ask her name. She was on line with us for 3 of the days. She took our picture.

My memory card ran out of space on Friday morning. I had no idea that I had taken so many pictures. I sat there and deleted photos of the grounds and stuff that I had taken pictures of for my blog to make room. The Robredo match ended during the start of a 2nd set tiebreak because Benneteau had a wrist injury. This was disappointing. I wouldn't have been able to take more pictures during it because I could only fit 22 more on that card. Luckily the Olympus store there had the right card. I had to pay $5.00 more for it here than at Walmart.

Some other players that I saw were Italy's Seppi(2 sets), David Ferrer, Marcos Baghdatis(only 1 set), Davydenko(1 set and 2 games), Stakhovsky and Querry(1 set) and parts of a few women's matches mostly because they were on the court that my guys were going to be next. Mark was mostly at his girls matches but he did watch some Melzer with me and saw John Isner. I would've liked to have seen him too but I was at Youzhny. I sacraficed some Ferrer and Lopez for him too.

I did quiet a few stupid things there but I'm trying not to dwell on it. At a few of the matches I could've moved to better and closer seats but I did not. I am not sure why. My view would've been better and I would've gotten better pictures. I also deleted a few photos that I shouldn't have and didn't take enough at a few matches like the Melzer v. Ferrero 3rd round one. By Saturday night I was feeling so tired and a bit sick so maybe that's why I wasn't thinking clearly then.

We bought some souveniers - 4.00 for 5 postcards, an 8.00 pin and the 17.00 book. Mark wanted the magnet but they were out of that so he got the pin. We didn't think until later that we probably could've ordered that from the US open site. They gave out pens, cookies and yougurt there. No beanie baby like last year. I was hoping to add this to my collection.

I hope that we are able to go to this event next year. I just finished going through my photos yesterday. Many of them didn't come out that great. I can't believe that I took so darn many at the Melzer/Petzschner doubles match. I swore that I wouldn't go so bonkers with the camera like I did last year but I was even worse this year. Mark regrets not taking more photos.