Death, taxes, and lopsided early-round matches in Arthur Ashe Stadium…. Those might as well be the three certainties of life. The top players and biggest names in tennis are generally too good–way too good–for their overmatched opponents who are just happy to playing on the biggest court in the world.
It isn’t always the case, of course. Coco Gauff needed almost three hours to win her match against Ajla Tomljanovic on Tuesday night at the U.S. Open. Carlos Alcaraz didn’t even win his 2024 second-round match against Botic van de Zandschulp.
Those are exceptions to the rule, however. For the most part, the favorites take care of business–and quickly.
That certainly is what transpired during the afternoon session on Tuesday. Iga Swiatek opened with a 6-1, 6-2 destruction of Emiliana Arango. Jannik Sinner followed by crushing Vit Kopriva 6-1, 6-1, 6-2. Combined, those two matches lasted two hours and 36 minutes–an hour on the dot for Swiatek and 1:36 for Sinner.
That means Arthur Ashe for all intents and purposes was empty by 3:00 pm ET (a match between Linda Noskova and Dalma Galfi previously scheduled for Court 7 got moved in there, but Noskova vs. Galfi is not exactly going to attract fans regardless of where it is played). As for the Louis Armstrong Stadium day session, those two matches lasted a combined three hours and 41 minutes. Armstrong started right at 11:00 am, so it was also done by 3:00.
Thus before it was even late afternoon, there was nothing (other than Noskova-Galfi!) to watch on the top two show courts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Queue the chaos!
When there’s nothing in Ashe and Armstrong, the rest of the grounds are a madhouse–to an even greater extent than they already are in the first place, that is. Court 17 was a zoo, as usual. Court 7 for a five-set marathon between Francisco Cerundolo and Matteo Arnaldi was filled to capacity–above capacity, in fact. Stefanos Tsitsipas’ following match on Court 7 was the same. Gael Monfils’ five-setter on Court 5 had people watching from not only that court but also from Court 4, Court 6, and the practice courts.
“It was actually unsafe how many people were there,” one friend texted me after managing to finagle a seat at least in general vicinity of Court 5 for Monfils.
If you play it right, you can still sometimes see what you want to see around the grounds. For example, I watched two fifth sets at the same time from one location. Tristian Schoolkate and Lorenzo Sonego were on Court 12; Daniel Altmaier and Hamad Medjedovic were on Court 13. You couldn’t get close to either court unless you got there super early, but that was a problem easily solved by watching from the top of Court 11. A clear view overhead of both 12 and 13.
Tricks of getting around the grounds aside, it would be nice if you could watch matches from the courts on which they are actually being played. And it would be possible if the sessions in Ashe and Armstrong lasted a reasonable length. But when one court with a capacity of 23,771 (Ashe) and another with 14,053 entertain (or not!) patrons for a mere couple of hours, every place else on the grounds is going to pay the price.
But don’t hold your breath for anything different to take place on Wednesday. The first match in Ashe is Novak Djokovic vs. Zachary Svajda.
Oh well, we’ll just have to embrace the outer-court chaos.
need better Ashe matches!
I happened to also be watching Sonego from the top of court 11 that day!