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Little Known Facts:
Event Factoids
• It is the final event of the Grand Slam tennis tournament series.
• It is held every year at the end of August and beginning of September for two week, before and after Labor Day.
• There are five championships: men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles.
• There are tournaments for junior, senior, and wheelchair players.
• The main court is located in Arthur Ashe Stadium. There are a total of 3 stadiums used.
• The US Open will be broadcast on the USA Network and CBS.
•Jimmy Connors was the only man that won the championship on three types of turf: grass, Har-Tru clay, and DecoTurf. Female player Chris Evert won on two types of turf.
Interesting Tidbits
• Singles winners receive 1.4 million dollars, while teams only receive between 150,000 and 400,000 dollars.
• The tournament has been played in Queens since 1978, when it switched to being played on an acrylic hard court.
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• The US Open is the only tournament in the Grand Slam series to have tie-breaking final sets. The other ones extend the last game until someone wins.
• The inner court is blue and the outer court is green, which helps with ball visibility.
• The tournament was developed from two separate tournaments for men and women.
• The US Open is one of the oldest championship event for tennis in the world.
Courts
The main court for the
USTA Tennis games is the 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium. It was named after Arthur Ashe, an African-American tennis player who won the men’s final of the US Open in 1968. The second court is Louis Armstrong Stadium. It was the main stadium until the completion of Ashe stadium in 1997. The third court is Grandstand Stadium. Other side courts have a seating capacity of over 1,000.
History of the USTA
The US Open tennis tournament began in 1881, making it one of the oldest tennis championships in the world. Chronologically, the US Open tennis tournament is the fourth event of the Grand Slam tennis tournament. The event has been held annually in August and September over a two week period (the week before Labor Day, and the week after), and it is the last event to take place during the two weeks. The main tournament consists of five championships for men’s and women’s singles, men and women’s doubles and mixed doubles. There are additional tournaments for senior, junior and wheelchair players.
The US Open was considered an exclusive entertainment event for members of high society. It wasn’t always one tournament. Initially, there were two tournaments that were combined to create the entire event. The first event was held in August of 1881 in Newport, Rhode Island at the Newport Casino and was for men’s singles only. The second event began in 1887 when the first U.S. Women’s National Singles Championship was held at the Philadelphia Cricket club. The event was known then as the U.S. National Singles Championship for men. At the time there was only one club allowed to enter the competition, and players had to be members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association in order to compete. A challenge system was put in place in 1884, where the defending champion from the previous year was automatically qualified for the next year’s final. This system was changed in 1911, and in 1915, the tournament was moved to the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York. For a brief stint (1921-1923) the tournament was moved to the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but returned to Forest Hills in 1924.
By 1900, U.S. men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles were introduced to the championship. During this time, tournaments were being held in both the east and west ends of the country to help determine the best two teams which were known as sectional winners. The winners of the sectionals went on to compete in a playoff round, and from there, the winner played the defending champions in the challenge round.
In 1968, the open era began when all five events were merged into the newly named U.S. Open in Forest Hills, Queens at the West Side Tennis Club. Besides the fact that it was a brand new tournament, another notable change was that professional tennis players were allowed to compete, which was unheard of prior to this year. Prize money for that year totaled $100,000, and 96 men and 63 women entered to compete for the prize. The 1970 US Open was the first of the Grand Slam tournaments that had a tie-breaker set at the end. Prior to the 1975 season, the games were played on grass, but Forest Hills switched to Har-Tru clay courts that year. It was 1978 when the event moved from Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows, where the courts were made of the current DecoTurf.
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