The attorney general of New York State needs to investigate the ticket practices that the USTA and the US Open org are perpetrating. Something is very fishy about what they are doing. Since the tickets went on sale, if you tried to get them on the web through the US Open org web site, you would inevitably be told that no tickets are available on the day you want but to try "our ticket partners". Click that link and there are ample tickets available with a $40 or $50 add on to the official price. Obviously, this "ticket partner" is not really a separate vendor. It seems that the USTA and US Open org are trying to squeeze even more from the public and don't want to take the blame for it. How on earth are all these tickets at the huge markup readily available while there are no tickets available through the US Open itself? I see no difference between this sort of monkey business and the grungy loser outside the boardwalk at the tennis center who has loads of tickets to sell yet could not tell you who Rod Laver is. At least the cops chase these guys off the boardwalk. This so called "ticket partner" should be obligated to sell at the regular price the tickets that the USTA apparently alloted to them. I would not even consider buying tickets from this questionable "partner". As Ricky Ricardo would say: "The USTA has lots of splaining to do".  

I agree.  There is something very weird going on.

 

Dobey - more strangeness.

When I first heard about the tixs, I put in for Friday, and was told to go to partners.  I passed at that time.

I just did it again because I do want to go and figured I better see how much it will be with the partners, but it was the regular ticketmaster site with the regular price.

Now I'm really confused. lol!

I went online the first day they offered tickets and was able to get ground passes for day 3 from ticketmaster at the list price but for everything else I was sent to a "partner". I refuse to buy from a legalized scalper in a blue suit. I would rather try that old lady who cruises up and down the 7 train barking out "who needs tickets?" Perhaps the bad publicity of the USTA participating in a ticket scalping scam got them to change their minds about using scalpers. I'll try it again if see if they have mended their nefarious ways at the US Open box office. 

Let us know Vinko.

I wonder if I put in for AA the first time.  This time I put in for a grounds pass.

I'll try again tomorrow and see what comes up.

I am  going  to try  for  more  tickets after work today. If they are  still doing  this partner nonsense the president of the USTA is  going to  get a letter about although I  doubt he will read  it.

The grounds  pass is the best  deal for  the  early rounds anyway. In  the stadium they  usually have Serena Williams  beating  up on a qualifier or Andy Roddick playing the  200th ranked player and  since you have to  be in the nosebleed section with a stadium ticket you're  better  off watching the outer  court matches where you can be right at courtside  and there are usually some  compelling matches too.

I phoned the USTA today and as expected, I got the runaround from the USTA. First, the guy that I talked to said he knew nothing about the "ticket partners" and suggested that I phone ticketmaster. I told him that "that dog won't hunt" and I finally was given someone who works directly for the US Open to talk to. I talked to a woman who took a Sergeant Schultz "I know nothing" attitude. I got a third person who seemed to think that the purpose of my phone call was to lease a luxury box or to be a corporate sponsor. Once I assured him that this was not the purpose of my phone call, the guy lost all interest. The people who work directly for the US Open are apparently trained that they can be as indifferent as they wish to be to people who just want to buy nose bleed tickets for a day or two. This perhaps explains why tennis remains a niche sport when it should be a major sport. Golf's PGA tour got rid of the "who cares about the lowly fan" attitude a generation ago and golf is now a major sport. But back to the US Open and the "ticket partner" nonsense, it is obvious that the USTA is using chicanery to raise the ticket prices substantially and wants to hide the fact that it is the real culprit.    

Sadly, sounds like the USTA.

They are horrid to fans. 

And true about golf.  I went to a tournament this summer, and it was just so much more relaxing than going to a tennis tournament.  I was treated well, I didn't have security people treating me like dirt when I came into the tournament grounds - I brought in some small snacks and a bottled water, and no one had a heart attack about it.  Inexpensive as compared to tennis, and my dad got in free becuase it was seniors day.  And parking was easy and no lines anywhere.

And unlike tennis, they had free live streaming for their US Open.

No wonder golf kicks tennis's butt.  They don't torment their fans!!! lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Two years ago I went and waited all day  through  the rain before they finally canceled  the session. They said we  could  bring  our tickets to another  session that week. When I went to  that  session there was a huge  line all the way across  the boardwalk. We asked where is  the line for people exchanging  tickets. Their answer was "there is  no line for you, get in line with people who  do  not have tickets". After an hour and a half in the hot  sun they said there are no tickets for anyone today and  there will be  no exchanges. We asked why did you say we could exchange a ticket when we  can't? Their answer was "we only meant  that if a ticket was available you could exchange a rain check." After alot of grumbling and hemming and hawing  they agreed to exchange the rain check for a ticket-next year.

They seem to go out of their way  to make life as miserable as possbile for the public. Here there were thousands of people who keep tennis alive and  their viewpoint is drop dead, you aren't buying a luxury box so why should we care about you? 

In 2006, I was at the US Open for two days and the second day it rained. Since I had an extra few days in NYC, I thought oh well, I will just come back tomorrow. When I went to the ticket booth, I was told that I could exchange my ticket for a night match but NOT a day match. When i groused about that, the lady at the ticket booth started rambling about how I could try to redeem my ticket for next year. I patiently told her that I did not think it was really fair to insist that I trade my day ticket for a night ticket when there were only two matches at night and the tickets were far cheaper for the night session than the day session so I should get the differential returned to me. The lady then said to me: "Alot of people prefer the night sessions". So I said to her: "If that is the case, why are the night tickets so much cheaper? Predictably, she had no answer. Just as this year, the USTA will not divulge how many tickets they siphoned off to their "tennis partner" and why they felt the need to siphon off so many tickets and make attending the US Open out of reach for so many people.   

Tennis promoters seem to delight in screwing the tennis  public. I don't get it. How can they expect the game to grow  when they always find a way to gouge the  people who keep  tennis alive? In New Haven a few  years  ago there was a match scheduled between Jennifer  Capriati  and Venus Williams. It  was  rained  out. When  the match was  rescheduled they said you could  use  your ticket to see it but  only  from the nosebleed  section.  If  you paid  top dollar for a courtside seat you had to go upstairs and  the difference in price would not be refunded. They said it was too complicated to give refunds on any portion  of  the ticket. If  my little PC can do it, their software surely could.

When  the tournament director was asked  by many people how can you make people who paid the premium price to see Venus and Jennifer go upstairs and not give them any refund her answer was the predictable "Alot of  people prefer it upstairs." When asked if  that is  the case  why do you charge more  for  the downstairs seats she said she had to go. All they  had to do was  refund a portion of the ticket price or offer complimentary tickets to another session and people would have been accepting but their answer was no refund, no rebate, no nothing, get  your  behinds upstairs and be quiet. 

Tournaments need to be more careful of the paying public rather than just trying to satisfy their big sponsors no doubt. 

 

 

I agree with all the shenanigins (sp?, sorry) and that the USTA is perpetrating is crap.

I do have one good thing to say about them though.  They found some great, really good tickets for me for the French Open for two days in 95, and then a few years later they found me two seats for the men's and women's finals matches at Wimbledon!  I'm a life member but that should have nothing to do with it and when their ticket patrol finds out I wrote this my ranking will surely dip but I have to mention it to give them a little credit.  I also want to admit that I thought it kind of unusual that I was treated so well with tickets of such great value.

 USTA is anything but fair and democratic, and working for the common good.  Sometimes though they do nice things.

If you can get tickets, well it ain't Eastern block right?   the market is very efficient

The USTA's use of "partners" means  they have gone into  the scalping  business.There is  no other sport that tells its base  that you have to buy tickets from a scalper.    The other issue  with the USTA is  that they leave tens of thousands of seats empty for the Open. The entire courtside area is off limits because it is reserved  for corporate sponsors and "VIP"s. They  never  use  the tickets until the semifinals. Most of them  do  not play  tennis  or  follow  tennis.  The suits  use  the courtside seats  to impress eachother  that they can be  there for the finals or in the case of show  biz people,  to promote  their latest sitcom. The  showbiz people just happen to be  discovered  by  the cameras and just happen to have a new  sitcom on NBC (if it's a USA feed)  or CBS if it's a CBS feed). Once  they  make  their on air pitch they are out  of  there  faster than a race horse. 

The best thing to do if you want to attend the Open is to buy a grounds pass.  While I believe that one day they'll have completely separate seating for Armstrong stadium - the way Wimbledon does for Court 1 - a grounds pass is still the way to go. Unless you want to watch the semis or finals, or can only go at night - Ashe Stadium is not the place to watch tennis.  And for those who haven't been or haven't tried, getting into Ashe without a ticket is rather simple.

 

I don't know what is going on with all these "partner" deals for getting tickets.  I didn't think the USTA would stoop so low as to not have any tickets directly available from the USTA for USTA members.. But who am I kidding, this is the USTA!

 

Real fans know the best action is on the courts other than Ashe. And even if there is an exciting match going on there, it's not a problem if you know what you're doing to get inside Ashe stadium. 

 

Oh, and memo to the USTA - How's the roof coming along for Arthur Ashe Stadium? Seeing how Australian Open has one, Wimbledon is about to get one, and the French are building one, surely the Americans (always bigger, faster, stronger, better) figured out a way back in the '90s when they constructed the monstrosity that is Ashe, that it would have a roof, and thus be a multi purpose venue.  The next big tropical storm to wreak havoc with the Open schedule (and the laws of nature say it will happen), and you'll *really* hear screams from TV and fans - and squeals from USTA brass!

 

PS - I now feel bad they named the main stadium for Arthur Ashe. They should have named the USTA Nat'l Tennis Center for Ashe. The Stadium they should have named for BJ King. Would have been more appropot. The Tennis Center is more representative of Arthur; the stadium more akin to BJK: for all its grandeur it's just a big stage, without a lot of atmosphere or substance, and riddled with contradictions. 

It is really shortsighted on their part that they built that huge stadium without a roof. Hindsight is 20/20 but I remember during construction they gave media and ticket holders guided tours and that was pretty much the first question everyone asked: where's the roof? To which they said (then) that since it rarely rains during the two weeks of the Open they felt they did not need it. But what a waste when you see over the weekend, for instance, Arthur Ashe stadium hosted the WNBA NY Liberty. If they had a roof they could have hosted more events like that, concerts (memo to the USTA: just don't play any 70s or 80s music or risk the wrath of Vinko!), conventions, etc. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a stadium that is way too big for tennis (you sit upstairs you can hear the rumbling of the 7 train more clearly than the bounce of the ball) that essentially goes unused for 48 weeks a year. The Key Biscayne stadium that hosts the Sony ERicsson Open is a much more intimate setting and they add the bleacher seats upstairs for the tournament. But as everyone here says: it's almost pointless to go into Arthur Ashe Stadium the first week of the Open and it has almost zero atmosphere because die-hard fans are all on the outer courts so your'e stuck with a half-full cavernous monstrosityand on TV it looks like no one cares about the Open when the reality is the outer courts are packed for week one. But let's face it: it's all about the corporate luxury boxes - that's where they're making the money. The annual rent from those luxury boxes, the concession (each has a bar, food, staffed by employees, etc.). You're right: it is silly that no one there had the foresight to build a smaller stadium with a roof. It's funny because when I meet people who are attending the Open for the first time they all want to go into Ashe Stadium and then they actually sit there for a match and just as quickly wanna get out of there and go to the Grandstand or other outer courts where they can actually see a match. Other sports are learning bigger is not necessarily better. The Mets' new stadium which is nearly finished across the street from Ashe will be nearly 10,000 seats smaller than the current Shea Stadium. First time I ever sat in Centre Court at Wimbledon could not believe how much more intimate it was in person than it appears on TV. Unfortunately, Ashe Stadium is the opposite.