Fri Sept 4: For the 8th time in 9 years, I've gone to the US Open in NYC for Labor Day Weekend. I flew out on Friday morning, and got to JFK Airport around 5 pm. Am I a geek for posting this picture, which is on the wall at JFK? 
My brother arrived at the same time, and we took a train to Manhattan. After checking into our Marriott Hotel in the Financial Center (for those of you following the US Open closely, this is not the Marriott Hotel that Melanie Oudin was staying at), we went to Chinatown for dinner (had Malaysian food), then came back to our hotel. We were up til midnight watching Taylor Dent's match on TV. Sat Sept 5: We got up around 7:30, headed for breakfast at 8:30 (the same breakfast diner we've ate at every time), and got on the train a little after 9:00. We got to Flushing at around 10:00. Although the first matches don't start until 11 am, we like to get there early to either see the Ralph Lauren shop and look around at the exhibits. Famed coach Nick Bollettieri was there giving commentary. 
We had Grounds Admission and Ashe evening tickets, so that means we couldn't watch any of the day matches that were taking place at Ashe Stadium (the main one). First up was Novak Djokovic against Jesse Witten. Witten had come through the qualifier rounds, but gave Djokovic all he could handle. I wasn't too impressed with Djokovic's game. His forehand was consistently landing short (i.e. not even up to the service line), and Witten was capitalizing by drilling flat forehand winners. Witten actually won the first set (and coincidentally at the same time, Hewitt had taken the first set off Federer in Ashe, and so the place was buzzing), but in the end, the Djokester won in 4 sets. Djokovic is now coached by Todd Martin, whom you can see in the 2nd row near the corner, in a white hat. 
By that time, it was past 2 pm, and we hadn't eaten. So we went to the food court for lunch, then walked around a little. I split up with my brother at this point, because I "had" to go to the Grandstand to see Thousand Oaks resident Sam Querrey play French Open Finalist Robin Soderling. It's always fun to watch a match at the Grandstand, because the place is so cozy. Querrey is in the near court. 
Soderling had way too much game for Querrey. He seemed to win all his rallies, and not even Querrey's vaunted serve seemed to phase Soderling, and it was over in 4 sets. My brother joined me after that (it was probably around 5 pm), and we watched 2003 US Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Israeli Shahar Peer. Probably the most exciting thing that happened at this match was when they flashed a score on the scoreboard: Melanie Oudin had just beaten Maria Sharapova in three sets. The crowd went crazy. 
It was probably around 7 pm, and my brother and I left to get some food at the food court. There were tons of people watching the big screen TV, because John Isner was up two sets to none against Andy Roddick at Ashe. Although we had evening tickets for Ashe, the Isner-Roddick match was technically a day session match, so we had to wait for that to finish. So I went back to the Grandstand. Hardly anybody was there to watch a bubbly blonde 19-year old Danish girl named Caroline Wozniacki. (Now that Wozniacki is in the semifinals, you may not believe me when I say that I was predicting big things for her). Wozniacki is in the far court. Sweet Caroline? The Great Dane? 
It was probably around 9 pm when we exited the Grandstand. There were tons of people milling around outside watching the jumbotron, because Roddick and Isner were deadlocked in the 5th set. We watched the tiebreak on the jumbotron, and the place went nuts when Isner completed the upset. At this point, the organizers had a difficult decision to make. The evening session was supposed to start at 7 pm, with Dinara Safina's match, followed by James Blake's match, but Roddick's match didn't end until after 9. That meant they couldn't start until around 10 pm. So they wound up moving Safina's match to Armstrong and playing Blake's match at Ashe, with both matches starting at 10 pm. People without Ashe tickts were of course delighted, but people with Ashe tickets weren't getting their money's worth. We decided to watch the Blake match, but Robredo destroyed him in straight sets. Even so, it was around 1 am when the match finished. We had some difficulty getting back to the hotel, and so it was after 3 am when I went to sleep. Sunday Sept 6. We got up around 8:15, probably had breakfast around 9:15 and were on the train around 10, so it was a little after 11 when we got to Flushing. Gilles Simon and Juan Carlos Ferrero were playing in Armstrong. Simon won the first set 6-1 before we even got inside the stadiuim. However, he injured his knee, and Ferrero won the next two sets before Simon had to retire due to injury. On the Grandstand, Fernando Gonzalez beat Tomas Berdych in straight sets. 
I also caught a little bit of a women's doubles match. Russia's Maria Kirilenko and Elena Vesnina. Let's just say they're easy on the eyes. 
We had lunch after that, then went back to Armstrong, where I had my first chance to see the very promising and talented Juan del Potro of Argentina (sorry, the picture was kind of blurry). This guy has a huge game, so I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more from him in the future. I overheard this description of him: "he's from Argentina but looks like a map of Chile." After dinner, we headed to Ashe. Flavia Penetta beat Vera Zvonareva in three sets. Zvonareva squandered 6 match points in the 2nd set, then proceeded to lose 6-0 in the 3rd set. Understandably she was quite distraught after the match. Crimea River if you know what I mean. The featured match was Andy Murray against Taylor Dent. This turned out to be a no-contest. Murray had way too many weapons. It sure looked like Murray was playing well enough to win the US Open (but he then lost to Marin Cilic badly two days later). That was it for my 2009 US Open experience.  
| 
