The US Open is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments that takes place in New York City in late August and early September. As the only Grand Slam in the United States, the tournament is played on hard courts at the United States Tennis Association (USTA) facility in the borough of Queens. It is customary to refer to the courts where this tournament is played as 'Flushing Meadows', but the official name is the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. There are 22 courts inside the facility and 11 more in the park. The main court of this magnificent facility is Arthur Ashe Stadium, which can hold as many as 22,500 spectators. It is the largest tennis stadium in the world!
The last Grand Slam of the year
The US Open Tennis Championships, commonly referred to as the US Open, is chronologically the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament of each calendar year. The other three, in chronological order, are the Australian Open, which is the first Grand Slam tournament each season, followed by the Paris French Open and London Wimbledon. The US Open is one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, with the men's singles and doubles first played in August 1881.
The tournament consists of five main events: men's singles and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles. The US Open also includes matches played by seniors, juniors and wheelchair players.
History of the US Open
The US Open tournament was first held in August 1881 on the grass courts at the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island. In the first years in the history of this championship, the tournament's matches were played only in men's singles, and the tournament itself was known as the "United States Men's National Singles Championship". It was not until 1887, six years after the first men's competition, that the first women's national singles championship was held.
The open era began in 1968, when professional players were allowed to compete in the tournament for the first time. All previous US Championships had been restricted to amateurs. In 1970, the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to use a tiebreak to decide the winner of a set with a score of 6-6 in games. It is also worth noting that 50 years ago, in 1973, the New York tournament became the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money to men and women.
It is also interesting to note that this is the only tournament where the surface has been changed - and twice! The first time was in 1975, when the courts were changed from grass to earth after complaints about the ball bouncing off the surface. In addition to better ball bounce, it was hoped that the brick surface would be more 'TV-friendly'. Lighting was also added, allowing matches to be played after dark. In 1978, when the tournament changed venue and moved from the West Side Tennis Club to the larger and newly built USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York, the surface also changed once again - from brick to hard court.
The change to a hard court surface did not end the modification of the courts at all: until 2019, this Grand Slam was played on a hard surface called Pro DecoTurf. This is a medium-fast, multi-layer cushioned surface. In March 2020, the USTA announced that Laykold would become the new supplier of the court surface. In turn, the colour of the courts has been changed since 2005 and now all Flushing Meadows tennis courts are painted blue inside the lines to make it easier for players, spectators and television viewers to see the ball. The area outside the lines has continued to be painted green.
New York champions
The only man to win the New York tournament on all three surfaces was Jimmy Connors. Since it began, this tournament has been won five times each by Jimmy Connors (1974, 1976, 1978, 1982-1983), Pete Sampras (1990, 1993, 1995-1996, 2002) and Roger Federer (2004-2008). The latter not only equalled the record of his predecessors, but also claimed the most victories in a row - between 2004 and 2008.
No female tennis player has won the tournament on all three surfaces, and no female tennis player has won it on both grass courts and on clay courts. Chris Evert was the only player to win the event on both grass and hard court, making her the only woman to win on two different surfaces in New York. Chris Evert also holds the record for victories, having won the singles final six times in the tournament. Just as often, the best result in New York was achieved by tennis legend the incomparable Serena Williams.
It is worth knowing that the overwhelming majority of winners of this Grand Slam tournament come from the United States, the second most frequent US Open winners are Australians and Great Britain and Switzerland are together in third place in terms of number of victories.
What will the results of the US Open be?
This year's 143rd edition of the tournament starts exactly on 28 August, with a prize pool of $60.5 million. This tournament always features a gigantic prize pool. For the winners of the singles tournaments, there will be a cheque for $2.5 million in 2023. The men's and women's singles draws will feature 128 players, 112 of whom have qualified for the main tournament through world rankings or wild cards, and 16 will earn a place in the tournament through qualifying matches played the week before the main tournament begins. This year's defending champion in men's singles play will be Carlos Alcaraz, for whom this was then his first Grand Slam title. Certainly, the young Spaniard will not have an easy task - the 3-time New York winner Novak Djokovic, who was thwarted by Alcaraz in London, is eagerly awaiting another trophy and another Grand Slam title in his career.
However, Polish tennis fans are certainly waiting for another success of Swiatek - Iga is defending her title this year, which she won in New York by winning in the final of the tournament against Tunisian Ons Jabeur. It is worth recalling that the New York men's final has never featured a Polish player. Only in 1937 did a Polish tennis player, Jadwiga Jędrzejowska, play, but in the last match of the tournament she had to acknowledge the superiority of a player from Chile. So Iga Świątek brought great joy to all her fans last year by reaching the singles final and, on top of that, winning it. Triumphant photos of Iga Swiatek in New York circulated the world and of course we are keeping our fingers crossed for excellent results in this year's edition of the tournament. In addition to Iga, Polish fans are certainly waiting for the victories and excellent results of the US Open to be won by the other Poles, especially Magda Linette and Hubert Hurkacz.
