Tennis Talk

The US Open is a more modern form of the previous championship called the US National Championship which only used to have men singles play at in 1881. It is part of the Grand Slam, being the fourth and final championship of the year. The Australian Open being first, the French Open as second, and Wimbledon as the third. The US Open generally begins the last Monday of the month of August each year. The tournament has five events which include womens and mens singles, womens and mens doubles, and lastly, mixed doubles.

In 1881, the US Open was played on grass courts at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. The first couple years of the tournament, only men competed and they only played singles. This went on for about six years until they brought women into the tournament. By 1915, people created a petition wanting the tournament to move to New York because they said most players and most fan were located there. They argued that it would be more beneficial for all of them. There was an opposed side to this petition, however, the opposing side lost for votes. The tournament was held at Forest Hills Stadium until 1921. In 1921, the US Open was moved to Philadelphia until 1924, when it was moved back to New York. The reason it was moved for a couple years was because they added on 14,000 seats to the Forest Hills Stadium during that time.

In 1924, the US Open became one of the major tennis tournaments around the world. All five events of tennis were finally added to the tournament in 1968 with 96 men and 63 women playing in the tournament. As the tournament kept getting bigger, it was moved north of Forest Hills to USTA National Tennis Center, Queens in 1978. Also, the courts went from grass to clay and has a total of 22 courts available to play on.

Picture and information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Open_(tennis)