9-13-15

Me: The Unisphere

Built for the 1964 World's Fair as a symbol of world peace. It's the largest globe structure in the world at 140 ft high, 120 ft diameter & weighs 900,000 lbs. The globe is made of stainless steel & was engineered & constructed by the American Bridge Company (a division of US Steel).

The Unisphere is located in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, NY. It's a magnificent greeting as you walk up to the USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center.

We arrived by 10am on September 11th excited to watch the women's semi-finals matches at the US Open.

A statue of Arthur Ashe is in front of Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Before going into the stadium we watched ESPN Sports Center broadcasting about the upcoming matches. That's Pat McEnroe with Mary Joe Fernandez.

Pretty cool to enter the huge stadium (as seen on TV)! Our seats were actually quite good even though we look so far away in these photos. I guess we could have paid $1000 + to be in the 3rd row. :-) 

Waiting for the 1st match between Simona Halep (seeded #2) and Flavia Pennetta (seeded #26). Flavia Pennetta surprisingly beat Halep in just under an hour!

And then THEE match that everyone was excited to see; Serena Williams (seeded #1 and going for the GRAND SLAM if she was to win this match plus the finals match on Saturday) against Roberta Vinci (not seeded). FYI: The Grand Slam is winning all 4 majors within a calendar year. The last woman to do that was Steffi Graf.

The match started with Serena winning the 1st set. At that time we thought Serena may win the match in under an hour as well.

 We ultimately wanted Serena to win & go on to make history but after the 1st set we were rooting for  Vinci to win the 2nd set. We just wanted to watch more tennis!!

To everyone's surprise Roberta Vinci did win the 2nd set & the ultimately won the match. What a HUGE upset to beat Serena Williams (possibly the biggest women's upset in women's tennis). I feel badly that Serena wasn't able to make history but truly Vinci deserved to win this match by the way she played.  She just hustled and never gave up. Vinci stayed composed even with Serena causing some commotion with occasional outbursts. Serena looked sluggish and it appeared that her feet hurt. We could see both ankles were wrapped up. 

I'm sure Serena is accustomed to shorter matches, often winning many points on her fast serve alone. Maybe Vinci making Serena hit more balls wore her down. Roberta Vinci was a gracious & ecstatic winner and her interview was adorable. She even apologized to the American fans for beating their superstar. :-) I only wish that Vinci had won the US Open title the next day but she lost to fellow Italian, Flavia Pennetta. I'm sure Roberta was tired but congrats to Pennetta.

It sure was something to see such an epic women's match. Now add to that experience by seeing John McEnroe play!! As we were leaving Arthur Ashe stadium we realized that the masters men's doubles final was being played on court #11. The McEnroe brothers were in the finals so we hustled to court #11!

We walked right in and sat in the front row…what a thrill to see up close John McEnroe & Patrick McEnroe. Both Bob & I grew up watching John McEnroe & Jimmy Connors (and others of that time).  Photo above shows John McEnroe's distinctive serve.

No denying John was a "colorful" guy to watch then and he was really fun to watch now. John & Patrick were comical on the court, often interacting with the audience. In the end they lost to Cash & Philippoussis in 3 sets. 

We left Flushing Meadows with huge smiles! And now we're inspired to play more tennis at home. Congrats to Novak Djokovic who won the US Open men's title on Sunday, Sept 13th. He played a great match against Roger Federer.