September 6, 2015- US Open-Part 2

  

 I was only at a set and a half of a Tommy Haas match. He was playing against Verdasco who beat him in 5 sets. If I hadn’t watched a few games of Jelena Jankovic’s match, I would have seen some more of it. The court was so crowded that I had to stand.

   Mike came over to it after the Jankovic match which she lost. I didn’t see him until afterwards though. He got Verdasco’s autograph. I sort of wish that I had to but at the time I was mad that he beat my Haas.

   I had wanted to see Haas’ doubles match but I stayed with him for Errani. I wish that I had gone with the voice in my head that said to leave after the second set so I could at least see some of that. I ran over to that court afterwards but it was over.

   Luckily, they were still at the court signing autographs so at least I got to see him. Mike had already gotten that for me several years ago. I got a couple of nice photos of Haas.

    I wouldn’t even be into tennis if it wasn’t for Haas. I was depressed about Mom being in the hospital psych ward so I put the TV on to watch “The Price is Right” only it wasn’t on because the tennis coverage was.

    I saw 2 cute guys, Haas and Ginepri, which got me to keep this on. Then I was kind of getting interested in the actual sport that I used to think was boring. That was in 2006.

   Would I have watched it if they hadn’t been cute? Maybe not, which is so bad. Yikes, I am pretty embarrassed about this.

   I wish that I hadn’t been so afraid to go to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens for this event in 2007 and 2008. I would have gotten to see more of my favorite guys matches. I only got to see one Safin match which he lost against Melzer in 2009. He retired at the end of that year.

   I shouldn’t have been afraid to ask my brother to get his autograph for me after his practice session then. I was the same way about James Blake another year. Mike has gotten me at least 8 autographs of tennis stars.

   My brother has many more autographs of them than me. He even got Sania Mirza’s three times. And he calls me obsessive for getting John Taylor’s twice. He was at the Mirza/Hingis match then joined me for the Gasquet one.

   We saw Victoria Azarenka at an autograph signing booth. My brother sort of regrets not standing in line for this. We watched Djokovic on the practice court for a couple of minutes. As we were leaving the center on our 4^th and final night there, we saw Federer at the ESPN booth doing an interview.

   The long, tiring days were well worth it. One year we went the first 6 days of it; I think that was 2010. The 6^th day was a last minute decision. I really wanted to see Fish and Melzer in their 3^rd round matches. I didn’t get to see all of Melzer’s though because the Fish one was very long.

   I didn’t like Melzer when he beat my Safin but the following year when Haas was out with an injury I was rooting for him a lot. I went to 3 of his singles matches and 2 of his doubles (with Petzschner) then.

   This was our last time ever at that event. We had gone there for 7 straight years. It is no longer in our budget. Mike said that he might try to save up and go to it again in a couple of years but I won’t be able to do that.

Tommy Haas

Hewitt

Feliciano Lopez

Tommy Robredo

Fernando Verdasco

 

 

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.