New York doesn’t lack for topflight sporting venues, nor for athletes who can set a crowd on its feet. Yet there’s been a frisson of something extra at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during this summer’s US Open.
It started during Fan Week, when a new mixed-doubles format meant look-ins from major singles players—Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu, Iga Swiatek, Casper Ruud, Jack Draper, Jessica Pegula, Frances Tiafoe, Madison Keys, Novak Djokovic… to name only a few—though it was a pair of Italian doubles specialists, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who claimed the $1 million prize. Needless to say, it was the most well-attended Fan Week in history, welcoming nearly 240,000 people to the Open’s grounds over six days.
Then came the start of the singles tournament, with defending champion Jannik Sinner and a freshly buzz-cut Alcaraz both making sparks fly across their first three matches—while on the women’s side, fan favorites Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka are set to face off in the round of 16 on Monday. (Aryna Sabalenka, our other defending champ, should have an easier go of it against the unseeded Spaniard Cristina Bucșa this afternoon—but hey, you never know.)
It’s been a crowded Open, a loud Open, an occasionally hostile Open (we’re looking at you, Medvedev and Ostapenko)—but it’s also been an Open teeming with jaw-dropping athleticism and pulse-quickening excitement, enough to make even the casual viewer fall in love with the game.
Photographer OK McCausland was out in Flushing this week to capture the players, the ball kids, the fans, the celebrities, the fashion, and—of course—the Honey Deuces. See the Open through her lens right here.
