US Open Day 10

Day 10 of the US Open started really hot. We sat under the sun, smeared heavily with sunscreen and peering beneath the shadows of our wide brim hats. Th sun in the final days of summer was persistent! Through the day I think I wished for snow more than once. Seriously too much sun for a day!

But the games were exciting, starting with the women's singles quarterfinal game between Italian Flavia Penetta and Russian Dinara Safina. Later in the afternoon was the major duel in the men's singles quarterfinals was between Andy Murray of the UK and Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina. Between five sets of games, we were able to check out the practice courts and watched like typical fans while Roger Federer and the night session's main attraction - Mardy Fish and Rafael Nadal swing their best. And still, there was enough time to return to the Murray-delPotro game to catch the final set where the British won over the underdog favorite.

While the players took breaks betweem sets, dance music filled the Arthur Ashe stadium which was meant to keep the crowd entertained. While many danced and waved to te beat, a great many other had a purpose in mind - to attract the cameras that roamed the crowds for images to flash on the two huge jumbo screens that flank the stadium. A sample view below:



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It was an extended play. The night sessions were scheduled to start at 7:00 PM. But the morning sessions did not end until about 8:30 PM. As the daytime crowd exited the stadium, the crowd that gathered waited eagerly for their chance to watch their own showdowns. The Williams sisters took the first round of the evening followed Nadal and Fish, which incidentally did not finish until 2:00 AM the next day - about the time I was deep into dreamland.

There is one thing about tennis and well, just about any sport when you bring it to New York. We are able to transform them all to Yankee game-alikes. Compared to Wimbledon where the crowds obey the whistle that signals the audience to quiet down, New Yorkers cheer, jeer and boo or clap thier hearts out for their sports heroes. And we always find someone to cheer for: either the New Yorker to give him the boost of home-court advantage or the underdog. Yes, in some cases they come in without a particular favorite player and just decide when they get there. And yes, they are very very loud. Too loud that they have irked the kinds of Serbian Novak Djakovic who in turn raised the irked of the local audience for not being 'sport'. Oh well, welcome to New York! =)

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