Tennis Ticket Broker > US Open Tickets

The U.S. Open is the last of the four Grand Slam tournaments played annually over the course of the tennis tournament season. The tournament began as the U.S. National Championship in 1881. The United States National Lawn Tennis Association first hosted the tournament. The first year the Newport Casino in Newport hosted the competition, which only allowed men who belonged to the association to compete. Six years later a women's singles tournament was added, and ever since doubles, senior, junior, and even wheelchair divisions have been created.

The tournament first became known as the U.S. Open in 1968 when the men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles divisions all met for the same tournament. That first U.S. Open met at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, NY. The field of players seems small today, with just 96 men and 63 women competing for five different titles and a total of $100,000 in prize money.

As tennis became more and more popular the tourney increased the playing field and the prize money sky rocketed. The tourney has stayed in New York ever since 1968, but has moved around the city. The U.S. Open stayed at the West Side Tennis Club until 1978, first playing on grass and then on clay for three years. In 1978 the U.S. Open moved from its Forest Hills home to Flushing Meadows, a place it still calls home.

While the U.S. Open has stayed at Flushing Meadows the tournament has been played on DecoTurf. To the viewer at home this is an odd looking court, a kind of surreal court when compared to the grass of Wimbledon and the clay courts of the French Open. The surface makes for a faster game, favoring a serve and volley type player above all else.

The tournament also differs from the other three Grand Slam tournaments because of a particular rule that has immense consequences. The U.S. Open has final-set tiebreaks instead of continuing that final set until a player wins by two games.