U.S. Open's quieter second week allows fans a more personal tennis experience

The second week of the U.S. Open is not like the first. It’s cooler and quieter and the big action is concentrated in Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadiums.

The outer courts, once strewn with so many ATP and WTA stars they hosted close to 60 matches a day and were standing room only for fans in the tournament’s opening rounds, have been given over to doubles and juniors, who play at a very high level but draw fewer spectators. Fewer fans total — 74,641 on the tournament’s first Monday, versus 64,834 for this Monday — also means it’s possible to snag an open table in the Arthur Ashe Sculpture Garden and that the line for a Honey Deuce no longer causes a traffic jam outside Ashe.

In this milder atmosphere, on Tuesday outside Court 12, Nick Samuel was even able to offer and receive a high-five from  players who’d just walked off court. Samuel, 28, a banker who lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, high-fived Brit Charlie Robertson and American Alexander Razeghi after Robertson’s win in straight but tight sets in the juniors competition. The interaction was quick but satisfying: “Great match,” Samuel said to both players. “Thanks, bro,” Razeghi said.

“It’s a great atmosphere and it’s not as crowded,” Samuel said. There were 43 matches total on Tuesday, with just eight men and eight women alive in the main singles draws at the start of the day, down from 128 of each at the tournament’s start. While the stadiums were packed, on the outer courts, “You can sit anywhere you want.” He’d paid $40 on the resale market for a grounds pass he said would have cost as much as $250 last week. He’d also spotted Belgian great and three-time U.S. Open winner Kim Clijsters walking the grounds and had taken a selfie.“I’m having a blast,” Samuel said, the muffled roar of a rowdy four-setter between American Taylor Fritz and German Alexander Zverev occasionally escaping Ashe.

In the food village, David Williamson, 65, a personal trainer from Atlanta, Georgia, said he had perspective from attending both weeks. “You get more bang for your buck” in the first week, he said, but over the 10 years he’d visited the tournament, he’d also found some second-week treasures. He’d seen the Bryan brothers and the Williams sisters play doubles. He’d seen the American star Frances Tiafoe and the rising Frenchman Arthur Fils when they were playing in the boys draw. “I had no idea” they would achieve what they have, he said.

Another argument for the second week: “I didn’t wait at all” for lunch, he said. “Last week it took 20 or 30 minutes.”

On Court 11, sipping $32 Champagne after American Iva Jovic, the third-seeded girl, dismissed Monika Stankiewicz of Poland in straight sets, sat Clinton Alford and Kenyatta Johnson, teaching pros from the Heights Casino, a club with tennis and squash courts in Brooklyn Heights, and Frank Cardona, a club staffer.

Alford, 48, of New Providence, New Jersey, said he’d been visiting the Open’s second week for 23 years. On a quiet outer court, “you get access that’s up close and personal,” he said. “You see the footwork and the speed.”

Johnson, 44, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, explained a fundamental difference between the amateur player and the professional, or soon to be: “The amateur player is hitting the ball to get it in, and the pro is hitting the ball not to miss. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it needs to go where they need it to go, when they need it to go.”

Of course, he allowed, “it’s easy to sit up here” in the stands. “It’s different when the ball is coming at you 85, 105, 125 miles per hour.”