You ever been to Cincinnati in August? 
There’s a gigantic amusement park literally across the highway from Lindner Tennis Center though. Your kids would probably love that.
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American summer ATP locations kind of suck. Atlanta, DC, Cincinnati and Newport RI? Don’t really want to go any of those places.
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We saw Serena around 2008(?). She’d been injured. She went on to win the US Open
I sweated through my shirt and had to buy a fresh one. I also got dried out and had a huge problem with dry eyes for a couple of hours until we went to eat and I chugged multiple glasses of water. Effing hot that day.
Oh man I forgot Winston Salem in fucken August, definitely on my bucket list
Yeah it’s the heat and the humidity, although some years are worse than others I guess. Also rains a lot in August. Probably the only tournament where you can get that close to the action though. Only time I’ve been closer was at a private indoor exhibition between Todd Martin and some top ~100 ranked pro where I was basically sitting on the court.
Challengers also look to be a good opportunity to get real close to the action. This is “center court” (lol) at the Bloomfield Hills event happening right now:
Is the quality of tennis much lower from the 120th/240th player compared to a couple of top 50s? I have no idea. Maybe I’ll go down to Chicago next weekend and see what it’s like.
They will all be really good tennis players. The top 20 compared to the top 300 can do it consistently every day every week.
Even going to watch random college matches the guys are really good.
Just think of how many football teams there are. In tennis only the top 50 are making money. Top 50 footballers list would look really good.
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If you’re able to stay high enough to get in the main draw of all four slams you’re doing at least OK money wise, right? Just losing in the first round of those four tournaments will get you a quarter million dollars or something.
To me tennis is interesting in that the slams are the easiest way for low ranked players to break through. Like you’re the 220th player in the world. You get through qualifiers and win three matches and you’re in the top 100. Four matches and you’re top 50. Easier said than done but that it’s possible is cool to me. Like it’s easier for low ranked players to get into a slam than a 250. Let alone a 500 or 1000.
Ruud posts a bagel in 5th set against hometown hero. 
damn that sucks I like Ruud
Could have some Brits make a deep run though!
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Another perk of watching the Challengers is stuff like this:
The American who gets the best result in Challengers in the next month and a half gets a wildcard to the US Open main draw. I’ll definitely be rooting for whoever that is.
They also do a swap with the AO, the Australian who gets the most points in the same events gets a wildcard. And an American similarly get into the AO main draw. This stuff produces fun outcomes like a random quarterfinals match in a challenger can end up being worth like $70,000.
They paused the match of the tournament? All of the scoring sites and apps for tennis are awful. Generally have to scroll through tons of doubles matches to find the marquee events buried within.
Yes. 11pm curfew. People have homes to go to.
Ridiculous. You haven’t lived until you’ve watched a sporting event way past it’s intended finish time and into the wee hours.
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Chicago tournament is like a 20-30 minute drive from me. Might go check some of it out next week.
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Yah but most people will use public transport and this is London with the oldest and most delapidated underground system that doesn’t run all night because they have to maintain it every night just to keep it functioning.
Looks like Murray doesn’t resume until 6:30 PM your time? Maybe they’ll award ashes to the winner.
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Think it might be a lot sooner than that the way the Alcaraz match is going.
It’s 3:30pm now.
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