It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (part one)

For some reason, although I've lived in Astoria since 1995, I didn't start attending the US Open until around 2002.  An old friend from Fordham took me out there for a qualifying match and then...I was hooked.  I've been taking the whole qualies week off from work ever since.  My mom started joining me a few years ago.  We've seen many wonderful players over the years--players who have become high-ranking stalwarts, players who were grabbing for one last hurrah, and players we enjoy who just never seem to make it to the next level.  It's always a grand time.  You get so close to the players--it's amazing.  You just can't realize how hard they hit the ball and how good everyone is until you're up close and personal. 

Because of all of my surgical mishegos, I wasn't able to take the whole week off work this year.  But my boss took pity on me and let me leave early one day during the week, and I went ahead and used some comp time to take off a summer Friday to stay all day in Flushing.  Two days of tennis are better than none, I guess.

My mom and I skipped out of work last Wednesday at around 2pm and followed Sports Illustrated tennis writer Jon Wertheim's suggestion to take Long Island Railroad to Flushing, instead of the regular 7 train.  LIRR costs a bit more ($5 for off-peak and even less for my mom's senior ticket), but you can sit in air-conditioned comfort and the trip is only 16 minutes long.  I'm hooked.   

A couple of years ago, we wandered into the Grandstand to escape the heat and watched some famous tennis stars practice.  My mom loved this (since she doesn't stay to attend the actual tournament), and we've tried to do it every year since.  Last year, we watched Nadal practice for at least an hour.  Which made my mom's life complete.  :)  This year, we wandered into the stadium for our first look at a player and saw...Gilles Simon.  Mom was quite impressed with how much more handsome Simon is in person, and with how much faster he seems to hit the ball.  On tv, his game appears to move much more slowly.  So we enjoyed a good 45 minutes with Gilles.   

After we watched Simon, Nadia Petrova came in to practice and since Mom isn't as keen on watching the ladies practice, we decided to head out to find us some qualifying matches.  The first match we went to was Alex Kuznetsov, US, vs Gastao Elias, POR.  We like to support the Americans.  We also like to support Court 11, because it has a nice location on the grounds, and a nice wall to lean back into.  Plus, it has nice shade as the day goes on.  We spend a lot of time at Court 11.  :)

This was a rather interesting match.  Kuznetsov was definitely the more steady player, but Elias was more explosive.  They both had some issues with their backhand slice, but the forehand to forehand rallies were quite good.  They split the first two sets, then Elias started to take control with his bigger serve and bigger forehand down the line.  

By now, it was after 5pm and we were STARVING, so we wandered over to the food court for an overpriced lupper.  I strayed from the vegan path (when don't I??) and we got fish and chips.  It was actually pretty delicious.  I tried to talk Mom into getting the salmon, but she was a little nervous about it.  I can't say as I blame her.  

We meandered around the grounds a bit, trying to find the match we wanted, and opted for another American player, Michael Yani, entering a first set tiebreak against a Brit, James Ward.  I had seen Yani play last year and found his game very smooth and pleasant, if nothing spectacular.  He has quite a following though in Queens and attracted a large crowd.  My mom and I ended up sitting near Michael's coach (and dad), which was kinda fun.  

James Ward, the player from Britain, was a little too crankypants to concentrate and play his best, so Michael took the match.  As we were watching, the lights came on in the complex.  Mom loves watching the matches under the lights.  That's Michael serving at the bottom left of the photo.

Our last match of the day was on Court 13:  Rajiv Ram, US, vs Axel Michon, FR.  We sat in a different section than we usually do--Mom wanted to try the seats at the top of the court, as opposed to along the sides.  It certainly led to a different perspective of the action.    Ram was definitely the more aggressive of the two players--he served and volleyed quite a bit.  When he got his serve in, it went well for him.  But he was struggling to get his first serves in throughout the match.  He finally pulled himself together to take the match in straight sets. 

Unfortunately, it rained all day Thursday, so Mom and I didn't make the trip out to Flushing.  After work, we did a little shopping at Trader Joe's, which turned out to be a good thing, since we needed to stock up on food for the upcoming hurricane weekend.  We did go out for a full day of tennis on Friday, which I'll report in another blog posting.

I especially like to take photos of players serving, so I'll close with serves from our first day of qualifying.  Enjoy.