As many of you know, I travelled home on Monday morning, after a tennis-watching weekend in New York that was disrupted by the remnants of Hurricane Hanna passing through. There primarily for the men's semifinals, I'd intended to find a ticket for the women's final on Saturday night. It didn't seem right to visit the US Open and not experience a night session. It turned out that the bad weather led to the women's final being delayed until Sunday night, and that there was only half of a men's match to watch on Sunday, so I lengthened my trip by a few hours, and stayed on for the women's final anyway. I'm glad that I did, because, unexpectedly, it turned out to be the highlight of my trip.
Earlier in the day, I'd been sitting in Arthur Ashe stadium in the late afternoon. As anyone who's familiar with the venue will already know, it's vast and deep, and as the sun moves across the sky, shadows find their way across the arena. After 5 o'clock or so, half of the crowd are seated in shadow, and the other half are still in bright sunlight, peering into the shadow that has by then seeped across the whole of the court surface. The lights are already on at this stage, but make minimal difference in evening out the illumination. If you're seated in sunlight, as I was, watching the players is hard work, though sunglasses help a bit. Tracking the players with my camera proved challenging - until I saw the pictures afterwards, I was convinced that most of them hadn't come out. There will be more pictures from my trip posted later in the week, via a web gallery.
Darkness had already fallen by the time I took my seat for the women's final, and the place was transformed. No need to squint to see anything - all was bathed in light. It was a mild, calm night, and this, coupled with the yawning depth of the seating areas, even gave a slight illusion of being indoors. I've visited other tennis venues with lights, but none looks as good as Arthur Ashe Stadium. There's no danger of stumbling down a darkened stairway and not being able to find your seat, because the audience are all well-it, and somehow, the fact that all are visible makes the arena look even larger. There were some empty spaces - possibly because of the timing of the final being changed - but the place seemed full enough.
Of course, being the final, the evening wasn't just about tennis, but glitter and razzmatazz, starting with a red carpet for a gospel choir and soul diva Anita Baker, progressing through the evening with various celebrities being shown on the big screen during the changeovers, and ending with Sinatra's 'New York, New York' blaring into the night sky as the stadium emptied after the evening was over. At some stage earlier, we'd had Liza Minelli's 'New York, New York' too. Maybe drowning my sorrows with a glass of champagne had put me in a better mood than the one that descended immediately after the departure of Rafa Nadal from the tournament (I had, after all, flown to New York to support him against my countryman), but I thought that in that setting, the brash sentimentality worked perfectly.
