US Open Visit Day One

New York City, NY

We got up early, showered, got dressed, then headed out to find a bagel, juice, and coffee (for me, of course!). There’s a great little diner right down the street from the apartment, so we had breakfast there. After a quick bathroom stop at Starbucks, we made our way to the subway station, hopped on the 6 train to Grand Central, then on the 7 train to Flushing. The train was packed with folks heading to the Open! We got there just as they opened the line to go in, walked right in and found awesome seats in the front row of Armstrong Stadium where we were waiting to watch Djokovic play. We had printed out the day’s schedule of matches and knew that Federer, then Oudin (our home girl!), then Roddick-Isner would be playing in Ashe that day. I called, texted, emailed, and facebooked everyone I knew, begging for Ashe tickets! Soon after the Djokovic match started, I got a text message from a friend telling me she had an extra seat in the JP Morgan suite – I texted her back immediately that Morgan would be right there! So, that lucky kid spent the entire day watching incredible tennis in a suite with free-flowing food and drink (and, most importantly, a private bathroom!). I stayed in Armstrong for most of the Djokovic match then headed out to find my friend, Pattie, whose nephew was playing doubles that day. I finally found them and hung out with them for a while before the match. While we were waiting, though, Coach Manny Diaz of UGA walked by, so I went over to say hello to him and met his beautiful wife. Ryan and his doubles partner won the first set of their match, but things quickly went downhill for them. They ended up losing in 3 sets. 🙁 While I was watching Ryan, Morgan was cheering on Melanie in her match against Sharapova – he said it was awesome! At the end of the match, after Melanie had won in 3 sets, Morgan ran down to the bottom of the stadium to try to get her autograph. He yelled down to Brian, her coach (and one of Morgan’s former coaches), who yelled a hello back up at him! Morgan also tried to get Mary Jo Fernandez’s autograph after she interviewed Melanie, but that didn’t work out either. 🙁

After Ryan’s match, I hung out on the grounds for a while then got a text from Morgan saying that our friends wanted to leave after the first set of the Roddick-Isner match. So, I got to watch the last 4 sets of that incredible match from their suite – it was amazing to be in Arthur Ashe Stadium that close to the action! Ultimately, Isner won the match in 5 close sets. Morgan was disappointed that his tennis idol was out of the tournament, but I was happy that a UGA player had won!

We filed out of the stadium and made our way over to the Nike booth to buy Morgan a pair of shorts for the next day. Then we took the train back to Grand Central then walked next door to the Grand Hyatt where we were going to pick up Ashe tickets from Pattie for the next day. While we were waiting for her to come down, we were approached by a guy with media credentials who asked if Morgan would be interested in doing some player interviews the next day. Of course, I wasn’t sure if the guy was legit, but I gave him my cell number and told me to call me if he was really interested. Then, Morgan and I grabbed kabobs from a street vendor and hopped in a cab back to the apartment for a good night’s sleep!