A Popular Price Point
Jerry Balsam
In recent years, the USTA has offered free admission to the day session on the second Thursday of the US Open. The practice continued this year, with one wrinkle that will be mentioned below. Combine the unbeatable price with good weather – neither hot nor humid – and you have a winner.
Good weather notwithstanding, I was not prepared to sit in the sun, so I passed up the opportunity to see the strong prospect Iva Jovic play a girls’ singles quarterfinal on Court 11. Instead, Louis Armstrong Stadium called out to me, and on this day the entire lower tier, including the first six rows of a nearly-empty upper tier, were liberated from ticketing requirements.
The first match on Armstrong featured the second seed in the boys’ singles, Kaylan Bigun, who had won the junior event at Roland Garros earlier in the year and is on his way to UCLA, against Rafael Jodar, who plays with an extreme Western grip and has signed on with the University of Virginia. The match was played with a doubles net, using singles sticks, presumably to make life easier when the men’s doubles semifinals were played later in the day.
Bigun’s parents sat in his player’s box, his father wearing the same type of Yonex shirt as the son, whereas his mother wore an adidas cap – the brand worn by Jodar. (Italicized links refer to photographs.) Jodar’s team sat in the corner at the other end of the court.
Bigun, a lefty, struggled in his early service games, although he enjoyed success throughout the match with a wide serve in the ad court followed by a strike into the open court. After salvaging his serve the first few times around, he was broken at 3-3 with two double faults in the mix. Jodar served for the set at 5-4, and Bigun earned a break point with a nifty backhand volley, but Jodar ran off three straight points to capture the set. Bigun spiked his racquet in frustration.
Jodar earned a break of serve to start the second set, and almost went up 3-0. He reached double break point when a Bigun serve hit the tape and sat up to be smacked away: in the juniors, since 2018, serves that touch the net are in play. After saving two break points in the third game, Bigun fended off four more in the fifth. He seemed to develop some momentum, with a run of four consecutive games giving him a 5-3 lead and a chance to serve for the set.
Bigun reached set point at 5-3 40-30 but did not make Jodar hit a ball, donating one of his nine double faults to allow his opponent to the haven of deuce. Bigun then missed forehands on consecutive points to squander his opportunity to clinch the set, and this time he threw his racquet to the court with some venom.
The set went to a tiebreak. At 6-4, Jodar had two match points, but now it was time for him to throw in a crucial double fault. At 5-6, Bigun saved the second match point with a wide serve plus a forehand down the line. Finally, on Bigun’s second set point on Jodar’s serve, a Jodar forehand ticked the tape and sailed long, so the match was tied. On the ensuing changeover, the music on Armstrong was the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive.
Bigun went up a break to start the deciding set, but was broken back at love in the sixth game, a double fault sealing the game. In the next game, Bigun earned another break. His service return, which was erratic throughout the match, pinned Jodar to the baseline, resulting in a backhand that went long. Bigun saved a break point to hold for 5-3 and served for the match at 5-4. It was not to be: from 30-30, he dropped a backhand into the net and hit an inside-out forehand wide.
In Bigun’s next service game, he fell behind by 0-40: three match points. He saved only one, netting a backhand at 15-40 to give Jodar a hard-fought 6-4 6-7(7) 7-5 win.
I hustled over to Arthur Ashe Stadium to catch the mixed doubles final, where I encountered the wrinkle mentioned above. A long line of fans waited to enter the stadium, but there was no movement. An official spoke, without benefit of a bullhorn, to the fans at the front of the line, inaudibly to me at the back. Eventually, it became apparent that a ticket would be required for this match, although there was no signage to that effect and no such indication on the published order of play. I retraced my steps to Armstrong, where I caught a girls’ quarterfinal between Mingge Xu and Tyra Caterina Grant. Unbeknownst to me at the time, both are only 16 years old. Xu won the British junior title at age 14 and really wallops her serve. Grant is the daughter of a former college and professional basketball player, and she and her partner, Jovic, won the Wimbledon girls’ doubles this year. They received a wild card into the women’s doubles at the US Open, where they lost their first-round match in three sets.
Both players wore wraps on their right legs. Xu came out of the gate fast, winning the first eight points. Grant came back from 0-2 to establish a 3-2 lead. Xu, who played closer to the baseline than Grant and was more willing to come forward, broke for a 4-3 lead. When serving for the set, Xu saved a break point with a 110 mph serve that clipped the tape (remember, that ball is in play under junior rules) and hit Grant (giving Xu the point even though Grant was well behind the service line). But then Xu double faulted – one of nine for her – and missed a backhand into the net, and Grant had tied the set at 5-5. Serving at 30-30 in the next game, Grant pushed two forehands into the net for another break. Xu saved a break point and then held to win the opening set, 7-5.
In the second set, it was Grant who sprinted to a 4-0 lead. What Xu giveth, Xu taketh away: she made it all the way back to 4-4. Xu saved two set points – both with 111 mph serves – to hold serve for 5-5 in a game that featured five deuces. Serving at 5-6, Xu could no longer escape trouble. She double-faulted at 30-30 and then missed a backhand approach shot down the line, giving the set to Grant.
Grant broke to go up 2-0 in the third set, as Xu mishandled a sitter of a swinging forehand volley, pushing the ball wide. This was the first of four consecutive games in which serve was broken. The next crisis on serve came at 4-4, as Grant saved two break points but hit a backhand long on the third to enable Xu to serve for the match. She dropped only one point in that effort, closing out a 7-5 5-7 6-4 victory and seeming overwhelmed by the achievement.
With the juniors done for the day, it was time for the men’s doubles semifinals. First up were Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson – both of whom I had seen in singles earlier in the tournament and whom I had seen as a team at Wimbledon in July – against Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow, whom I had also seen at Wimbledon. Whatever the cause of Purcell’s mysterious retirement to Tommy Paul, he seemed fine physically. Lammons, whom I’ve previously seen with a protective sleeve on his right elbow, eschewed the sleeve in favor of physio tape.
Withrow dropped serve in the opening game on a Thompson passing shot, and the teams held serve for the rest of the first set. Purcell and Thompson never faced a break point, and they closed out the set, 6-4.
In the second set, Lammons was broken at love in the fifth game, the final point decided on an unreturnable crosscourt backhand service return by Thompson. Thompson ran into trouble in the 4-3 game. Withrow earned a break point with a volley winner off a poach. After that break point was saved, Withrow put away a high backhand volley for another break point. Thompson saved that break point, too, but then Withrow earned a third chance with an overhead, and his team cashed in the opportunity with a deep service return by Withrow followed by a forehand volley winner from Lammons.
At 5-5, Withrow climbed out of a 15-40 hole. Thompson needed a two-deuce game to hold for 6-6 and a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, only one point went against serve, and it was decisive, as Lammons hit a forehand volley long at 4-4. The match was on Purcell’s racquet, and he hit a 124 mph service winner followed by a second-serve ace, 102 mph out wide, to clinch victory, 6-4 7-6(4). By the standards of men’s doubles, where serve dominates and margins are thin, the win was decisive, as Purcell and Thompson won 54% of the points – and 35% of return points, as opposed to 28% for Lammons and Withrow.
After the US Open, the doubles specialists Lammons and Withrow were tied for 128th on the ATP prize money list, at $449,352 each for the year. Considering their expenses, it’s not an overwhelming amount of money. Their opponents, who had reached the Wimbledon doubles final before their success in New York, are in a different bracket. Purcell, who is in the top hundred in singles, if tenuously, had earned $1,553,677, with a slim majority of that sum coming in doubles. The best singles player on the court, Thompson, was at $2,456,568, coming just short of $1 million on the doubles court. While doubles provides high entertainment for fans, it is evidently not entertaining enough to a sufficient number of fans to generate adequate revenue to boost successful practitioners into the economic stratosphere. It’s a shame.
The second semifinal matched the fourth seeds, Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic, against the tenth seeds, Kevin Krawietz (a two-time winner of the men’s doubles at Roland Garros) and Tim Puetz (also known as Pütz). Krawietz and Puetz were also on my Wimbledon menu this year, leaving Arevalo and Pavic as the only semifinal team I had not seen in 2024. To complete the financial picture, Arevalo and Pavic left the US Open with over $998,000 each in prize money for the year, all in doubles. Krawietz and Puetz were both at $659,701, also all in doubles.
At Wimbledon, Puetz presented the picture of a middle-aged weekend warrior, with a knee wrap and a bald pate. At the US Open, a baseball cap concealed his dome and the knee wrap was gone, although a discreet ankle brace remained. He looked much spryer.
Pavic, a lefty, has been one of the better doubles players in the world. He has won the men’s doubles at all four majors and the mixed doubles at three of the four, falling short at Roland Garros, where he has reached the final twice. Pavic has a unique service motion, tossing the ball well to his left and then taking a long step, as though he were catching a bus, to hit it. When receiving, his team chose to place its forehands in the middle, with Pavic playing the deuce court and Arevalo the ad court.
Pavic, serving at 3-4 in the first set, saved two break points. On the third break point, Krawietz nailed an inside-out forehand return of a 120 mph serve, hitting the line for a winner, and Puetz served out the set, 6-3.
In the second set, the teams went to a tiebreak, the only break points coming in the fifth game, when Puetz served his way out of a 15-40 deficit. Arevalo saved a match point when serving at 7-8 in the tiebreak, as Krawietz missed a backhand volley. Puetz dropped a service point at 9-9, netting a forehand volley after Arevaleo and Pavic played superb defense. On his team’s fourth set point, Pavic put away a forehand volley to even the match.
Arevalo and Pavic took a 3-2 lead in the deciding set as they broke Krawietz’s serve, and then they held for 4-2. The match then turned around. Puetz, serving at 2-4, escaped a 0-40 deficit. Had any of those three break points gone the other way, the outcome would have been nearly a foregone conclusion. In the next game, Pavic fell behind 0-40, saved two break points, and then was broken when he missed a forehand half volley. In the game after that, Krawietz was serving at 4-4 30-30. Pavic hit an inside-out forehand passing shot for a winner, and then a crucial point followed. At 30-40, Arevalo had a relatively short forehand, but his passing shot found the net. Had he made the shot, which he probably would do 90% of the time or more, his team likely would have won the match. That opportunity squandered, Arevalo and Pavic never got another. Arevalo fell behind 4-5 15-40 with a double fault, and then Puetz clinched the match with an inside-out backhand return of a second serve for a winner, and for the win: 6-3 6-7(9) 6-4. The winners had taken the last four games of the match, saving four break points in their two service games and nabbing two of the four break points they had in Arevalo and Pavic’s games.
At close to 10:00 o’clock on Thursday night, my US Open – at least my in-person US Open – was done for the year. But the Wimbledon overseas ballot is open from September 2 to 16, so maybe another transatlantic jaunt is in my future.