US Open Trip

Happy Friday everyone! I'm here to now document my epic Thursday with you...on a Friday :) Let me explain...
I've recently started preseason tennis practice with the girls and Thursday we took our first group trip to the US Open qualifying rounds! I was excited, I haven't been able to go as a freshman or sophomore, so now was my chance. Honestly, I was expecting something like a baseball game. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE baseball and watching it but when you're sitting in the stadium, everything is pretty slow. I thought the US Open would be like that: slow paced, big stadium, just sitting around waiting for some intense points... but boy was I wrong. The US Open was more like an amusement park. It seriously was built like one. The place was huge and surrounding a main center area were loads of tennis courts. Think of six flags. It has that main circle part near it entrance than pathways branch off from it entering into different rides and such. But instead of rides, we went to tennis courts to watch the matches. They. were. AWESOME !! Since it was qualifying rounds, it was free of charge and also there weren't really any of the big names playing ( Djokovic, Federer,  etc.). But all the players were still really good. (by the way, the food is really good too! just overpriced..)
The first court we went to (court 4, there's I think 17 in total) had a woman player from Taiwan (did you know Taiwan's abbreviation was TPE?? I did not know that) called Yung-jan Chan v. a player form Canada, Sharon ...something (I was rooting for Taiwan..cause well, she's asian. And she was REALLY good). Here are some pictures:

She won the match :) I learned a lot just by watching her. She would be so smart about where to place the ball. When the Canadian opponent moved up to the net, Chan just lobed it over her head so she couldn't touch it. She had such good control over the ball. I even got her autograph at the end! I was so excited. My friends and I even tried to get a picture with her but there were too many people wanting to do the same thing... oh well, an autograph is still awesome :)

We wandered around some more on the meandering paths, ate some lunch consisting of sandwiches, delicious waffle fries, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and somehow we ended up at a place where they were having interviews. Guess who was being interviewed?? ROGER FEDERER !!!! Gosh that was amazing. He was literally right. in. front. of. me. :o 

The one with half his face turned this way is Federer. Isn't it cool? I wonder if it's legal to post all these pictures on here...oh well :) That's why this US Open is so awesome. During its qualifying rounds anyone can come in free of charge, see amazing players play some matches and practice and it's just an awesome experience.
Next in one of the big courts, we saw the last few minutes of Bobby Reynolds', an American player, match. We really only caught the last few excited cheers since Reynolds won and then we saw him being interviewed by, I guess, some news reporter. 

the guy with the towel is Reynolds

You can actually see my coach in the above picture. She's the one on the right side with the white hat, dirty blonde hair and has her hand sticking out with her iphone trying to take a picture :)

the court. it's HUGE!

We got down where the crowd was too so we could get Reynolds autograph and I have to admit, I took some creeper shots of Reynold:

He's not even looking at my camera!
It's a picture with that boy on the right x)

He gave his towel away to some excited boys. Is it wrong to say that I was a tad jealous of them? Their first comment was, "Wow! His towel! Ew, it's all wet with his sweat../grin/" Bet they were thinking of selling it on ebay...
Our last couple of hours at the US Open was spent watching Andy Murray practice in the official court where the actual US Open takes place:

That's Andy Murray! I'm not sure what his rank is exactly but I know it's definitely in the top 20 or 10. He's VERY good. My favorite shots are the bottom two: him drinking water and him hitting an overhead :)
Well that was my epic Thursday adventure. I didn't get any pictures with my friends and me in them, I was too busy taking action shots x) If you get the chance, you should get yourself to the US Open qualifying matches. They're completely free! & the matches are awesome. Also the seats you get are REALLY GOOD. I sat right behind where Andy Murray was seating :D
Okay, well have a good weekend!!! Another week is done and it's now a week closer to school....