The Journey Inward

What a beautiful day to enjoy one of my favorite events in person! My daughter, her fiance and I made our way to Flushing Meadows, NY for a full day of play via car and trains.

Tennis is the main event for sure, but there are the other small delights. The signature drink with collector cup is a fan favorite! The Open serves the Honey Deuce, which is delicious! The food is horribly overpriced, but I always get the ice cream and this year’s lunch selection was spicy tuna poke. The athlete likenesses are fun, and the fountain is a great place to watch matches in the evening once our grounds passes run out. Being HBCU day was special on the 75th anniversary of Althea Gibson’s win, the first black woman to achieve that honor.

My daughter made us tennis bracelets for the DC Open and we broke them out again for this day!

We started the day watching Emma Navarro and Emma Raducanu up on the big screens. They are exciting to watch. Then we went to see a few games of Navarro’s match before heading into Arthur Ashe Stadium to see Djokovich play, my first time seeing him in person. From there we went to a small court for Cam Norrie’s very tight match. The crowd was so supportive and respectful. Next was a few games of the Fonseca match, two guys hitting big. Then it was back to Ashe for Jessica Pegula and her win. We rounded that out with time at the Casper Ruud match, which had such a disappointing end. It’s so fun to pop around to different matches, each with their own flavor and crowd profile.

A highlight for me was watching the practice courts, where I was lucky enough to see my favorite twosome, Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani. Zverev made a showing, too, but I just missed Gauff, Alcaraz and Shelton.

Tiafoe’s match was packed and I stood four deep at the very top to follow a bit.

Being live at Taylor Townsend’s now infamous match was another highlight. We had watched her win doubles in DC and bring her sweet son out with her and now we saw her amazing singles game, which we had also watched late at night at the Miami Open. We were there for the disturbing end and were able to show her our support and love.

We rounded out the night with Mirra Andreeva’s match. She is so young and so enthusiastic!

I have loved tennis my whole life, and watched Wimbledon faithfully ever year. I played in middle school and on y high school team, not much good but enjoying every minute. I love to play for fun now. My daughter started watching Wimbledon with me at 3 and learned the scoring, had favorite players and could focus for hours of tournament play in our family room. As an adult, she had been to far more tournaments than I have, included Roland Garros in France and the Serbian Open. It is a warm and special feeling to share this passion.

Photos: USTA Billy Jean King National Tennis Center, NY. 8.28.25 by LA and GE