By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
The U.S. Tennis Association hosted a pre-U.S. Open media conference call with USTA President Brian Hainline, USTA Executive Director Lew Scherr and U.S. Open Tournament Director Stacey Allaster on Wednesday, August 14. Here are the most important bullet points that fans will want to know.
- Brian Hainline discussed the new Mission Statement for the USTA, which for years as “The Promote And Develop The Growth of Tennis” but has now been changed to “Growing tennis to inspire healthier people and communities everywhere.” This is an improvement and further emphasizes that tennis is the healthiest sport you can play. “We have plenty of data to unequivocally support that,” said USTA President Brian Hainline. “We know that tennis compared to all other sports and forms of exercise decreases your risk of death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease the most, but up to 50%. Tennis compared to all other sports and forms of exercise increases longevity the most by 9.7 years.”
- Lew Scherr, Executive Director of the USTA, spoke of the excitement of U.S. Open fan attendance possibly reaching one million for 2024. If the weather is fine, this will likely happen. Over200,000 fans are expected for the “Fan Week” the week before the main draw begins.
- The USTA partnered with Marvel and will give out at Fan Week a new original comic book that will, according to Scherr, “feature not only the greatest celebrities and athletes in our sport, along with the Avenger characters, but also wheelchair athletes and some of the great American junior players here in the country.”
- US Open Tournament Director Stacey Allaster repeated the positive notes about the increase in U.S. Open prize money, which is up 15 percent from 2023. (Not many jobs give 15 percent raises these day, by the way.) Said Allaster, “In 2024, we’ve hit a real milestone in the main draw where the first round of singles, the player will earn $100,000, up from $81,000 in 2023. Last round of quallies, $52,000. For those athletes in the first round of qualifying, $25,000. I think it’s worth pointing out that the total purse for the qualifying is $7.3 million, making the US Open qualifying tournament the fifth largest prize money event in the United States.”
- There will be no US Open Wheelchair event in 2024 due to the athletes playing in the Paralympics. The USTA will, however, provide equivalent prize money to players who would have competed at the event. It would have been interesting to host a separate US Open Wheelchair event after the Paralympics.
- It’s not news, as we reported on this earlier here: https://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/23319 but U.S. Open qualifying will run Monday through Thursday this year.
- There will be some sort of “Legends” event on site at the US Open on Monday, August 19, featuring James Blake, Tommy Haas, Garbrine Muguruza and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. This is not that round-robin legends event that one used to see at the U.S. Open during the second week but you still see at the French and Australian Opens and Wimbledon.
- The American Express Fan Experience that normally opened on Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day will be open starting Monday, August 19th, the first day of Fan Week.
- Fans can continue to sit in the court-side seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium and see the greatest players practice during Fan Week.
- Wilson, a long-time U.S. Open sponsor, will distribute 10,000 free racquets during Fan Week.
- A concert in Louis Armstrong Stadium with Dierks Bentley will kick off Fan Week on Sunday, August 18 and there will be several other special night reasonably-priced ticketed events, including a “Mixed Madness” event will take place featuring Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios, Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas, and also “Stars of the US Open” featuring Carlos Alcaraz partnering with Andre Agassi, Novak Djokovic playing with John McEnroe and a mixed doubles match featuring Juan Martin del Potro and Gabriela Sabatini playing Andy Roddick and Venus Williams (Read more about Juan Martin del Potro here: https://a.co/d/5lTsmOX Also, there will be Flavors of the US Open that gives fans an opportunity to sample the great food from celebrity chefs that’s on offer during the US Open and a Block Party with DJ D-Nice, which is free Friday night in the South Plaza. For more info and for details, go to www.USOpen.org
- There will be a Finals Weekend FanFest where Louis Armstrong will be transformed into a viewing party for the men’s and women’s finals. The cost to get in $25. Rain or shine now. More info here: https://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/23663
- Said Allaster, “To keep the party going, after the women’s final, we’ll have a Finals Fest After Party in conjunction with Avant Gardener and the Brooklyn Mirage, and we’ll host an EDM. It has been a learning experience for me. Electric dance music, for those that don’t know. We will feature Grammy nominated Galantis. Again, tickets are $25.”
- There will be 894 matches total during the 2024 U.S. Open
- In 2024, the US Open will introduce controlled movement in all of our stadiums. Each stadium is different. What we will implement is that fans will be allowed to move in between games versus in the past in between changeovers. Said Allaster, “That will be new. It will be new for everyone. We’ll find our way through it. But we think this is an important addition to the fan experience at the US Open.”
- There will still be late night matches at the US Open but there will be a policy in case something gets really out of control. Said Allaster, “So in the event that we have the second match of the evening on Ashe or the last match on Armstrong, if those matches have not gone on by 11:15 p.m., the referee will have the discretion to move the match. That’s going to depend on many variables, like do we have the broadcast team ready, do we have a ball crew, so forth. But we’re defining that it’s a possibility. The athletes will know that in. The event that we do get to that position, then the referee will make that decision.”
- Hainline on pickleball: “I play tennis on public courts still. I grew up on public courts. Quite frankly, it’s obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise.”
- Allaster on electronic line calling in light of new glitches at recent events. “We introduced automated line calling in 2020. We have not had any major issues in the past. So it’s a technology system. It’s 98% correct. We do know previously when we used line umpires, the line umpires were 75%. With any technology there could be a few glitches, but we have a lot of confidence in the system.”