tennis news update

Roddick Still Hurting

Roddick said on a conference call Thursday that an MRI exam showed a partial tear in the tendon after he hurt his leg in a match against Lleyton Hewitt on Jan 19.

Roddick, who turns 30 in August, was hurt in the second set against Hewitt and took a medical timeout. He then played 16 more games before retiring.

"It's a concern," Roddick said. "I haven't hit a ball since Australia. We've just been working on different types of treatment trying to get it right. The MRI came back probably not as good as we were hoping. I'm hoping to be hitting balls for the first time next Monday, and that should get me. I fall goes well there, that should be plenty of time to be ready."

Roddick's first match in San Jose is scheduled for Feb. 15, and he is scheduled to play in Memphis the following week at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships. A good run in San Jose would give him a chance to win his 600th career match in Memphis where he won his 30th career title in 2011.

"My only urgent thing right now is getting this hamstring right so I can try to play well at San Jose," Roddick said.

Roddick was asked if he watched the Australian Final where Novak Djokovic outlasted Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam final, which went 5 hours and 53 minutes.

The American said he finds it hard to set his alarm for one in the morning when not playing in a tournament. But he was impressed by what he did see of that final.

"It almost looks like the kind of tennis you see when you play Xbox where the guys really don't get tired and they hit whatever shot they want. It's pretty remarkable," Roddick said. "I know probably at no time in my career — and I've been in pretty good shape throughout it — I don't know if I could play back to back six hour matches of that intensity

us open tennis history

The US Open has grown from an exclusive entertainment event for high society to a championship for more than 600 male and female professional players who, as of 2008, compete for total prize money of over US$21 million, with $1.5 million for each winner of the singles tournaments.
In the first few years of the United States National Championship, only men competed. The tournament was first held in August 1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island and in that first year only clubs that were members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association were permitted to enter. From 1884 through 1911, the tournament used a challenge system whereby the defending champion automatically qualified for the next year's final. In 1915, the tournament moved to the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, New York. From 1921 through 1923, it was played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia and returned to Forest Hills in 1924.^[1]
Six years after the men's nationals were first held, the first official U.S. Women's National Singles Championship was held at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1887, accompanied by the U.S. Women's National Doubles Championship (not held for the next two years) and U.S. Mixed Doubles Championship (not held in 1899). Between 1890 and 1906 sectional tournaments were held in the east and the west of the country to determine the best two teams, which competed in a play-off to see who would play the defending champions in the challenge round.^[1]
The open era began in 1968 when all five events were merged into the US Open, held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York. The 1968 combined tournament was open to professionals for the first time. That year, 96 men and 63 women entered the event, and prize money totaled $100,000 ($631,286 today).
In 1970, the US Open became the first of the Grand Slam tournaments to use a tiebreak at the end of a set. The US Open is also the only Grand Slam that continues to use the tiebreak in the 5th set. All the other three grand slams play it out with service games in the 5th set.
Jimmy Connors is the only individual to have won US Open singles titles on all three surfaces (grass, clay, hardcourt), while Chris Evert is the only woman to win on two surfaces.

 Player challenges of line calls

In 2006, the US Open was changed to implement instant replay reviews of calls, using the Hawk-Eye computer system. Each player was allowed three challenges per set plus one additional challenge during a tiebreak. The player keeps all existing challenges if the challenge is successful. If the challenge is unsuccessful and the original ruling is upheld, the player loses a challenge. Instant replay was initially available only on the stadium courts (Ashe and Armstrong), until it became available on the Grandstand in 2009.
Once a challenge is made, the official review (a 3-D computer simulation based on multiple high-speed video cameras) is shown to the players, umpires, and audience on the stadium video boards and to the television audience at the same time. The system is said to be accurate to within five millimetres.
During the 2006 US Open, 30.5% of men's challenges and 35.85% of women's challenges were overturned.^[2] During the 2007 US Open, 95 challenges were overturned - or 30.6%.^{[citation needed]}
In 2007, JP Morgan Chase renewed its sponsorship of the US Open. As part of its sponsorship arrangement, Chase renamed the tournament's replay system the "Chase Review" on in-stadium video and television.^[3]

 Grounds

Arthur Ashe stadium

The DecoTurf surface at the US Open is a fast surface, having slightly less friction and producing a lower bounce compared to other hard courts (most notably the Rebound Ace surface formerly used at the Australian Open). For this reason, many serve-and-volley players have found success at the US Open.
The main court is located at the 22,547-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, opened in 1997. It is named after Arthur Ashe, the African American tennis player who won the men's final of the inaugural US Open in 1968. The next largest court is Louis Armstrong Stadium, opened in 1978, extensively renovated from the original Singer Bowl. It was the main stadium from 1978–96, and its peak capacity neared 18,000 seats, but was reduced to 10,200 after the opening of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The third largest court is the 6,000-seat Grandstand Stadium, attached to the Louis Armstrong Stadium. In 2011, Court 17 was opened as a fourth show court, with large television screens and electronic line calling which allows player challenges. Sunken into the ground, it has been nicknamed "The Pit". It initially held 2,500 with temporary stands, but will allow over 3,000 fans after its completion in 2012. It is located in the southwest corner of the grounds.^[4] Sidecourts 4, 7, and 11 each have a seating capacity of over 1,000.
All the courts used by the US Open are lighted, meaning that television coverage of the tournament can extend into prime time to attract higher ratings. This has recently been used to the advantage of USA Network—and now, ESPN2—on cable and especially for CBS, the American broadcast television outlet for the tournament for many years, which used its influence to move the women's singles final to Saturday night to draw better television ratings.^{[citation needed]}
In 2005, all US Open (and US Open Series) tennis courts were given blue inner courts to make it easier to see the ball on television; the outer courts remained green.
The USTA National Tennis Center was renamed in honor of four-time tournament champion and tennis pioneer Billie Jean King during the 2006 US Open.

us open golf history

The first U.S. Open was played on October 4, 1895, on a nine-hole course at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a 36-hole competition and was played in a single day. Ten professionals and one amateur entered. The winner was a 21-year-old Englishman named Horace Rawlins, who had arrived in the U.S. in January that year to take up a position at the host club. He received $150 cash out of a prize fund of $335, plus a $50 gold medal; his club received the Open Championship Cup trophy, which was presented by the USGA.
In the beginning, the tournament was dominated by experienced British players until 1911, when John J. McDermott became the first native-born American winner. American golfers soon began to win regularly and the tournament evolved to become one of the four majors.

U.S. Open Trophy at the 2008 PGA Golf Show.

Since 1911, the title has been won almost exclusively by players from the United States. Since 1950, players from only six countries other than the United States have won the championship, most notably South Africa, which has won five times since 1965. A streak of four consecutive non-American winners occurred from 2004 to 2007 for the first time since 1910. These four players, South African Retief Goosen (2004), New Zealander Michael Campbell (2005), Australian Geoff Ogilvy (2006) and Argentine Ángel Cabrera (2007), are all from countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell (2010) became the first European player to win the event since Tony Jacklin of England in 1970.

 Qualification and prizes

The U.S. Open is open to any professional, or to any amateur with an up-to-date USGA Handicap Index not exceeding 1.4. Players (male or female) may obtain a place by being fully exempt or by competing successfully in qualifying. The field is 156 players.
About half of the field is made up of players who are fully exempt from qualifying. As of the next U.S. Open in 2012, there will be 12 full exemption categories:

• Winners of the U.S. Open for the last ten years
• Winner and runner-up from the previous year's U.S. Amateur, but only if they remain amateurs
• Winners of each of the other three majors for the last five years (separate categories for each tournament)
• Winners of the last three Players Championships
• Winner of the current year's BMW PGA Championship
• Winner of the last U.S. Senior Open
• Top 10 finishers and ties from the previous year's U.S. Open
• Players who qualified for the previous year's Tour Championship
• The top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as of two weeks before the start of the tournament
• The top 60 in the OWGR as of the tournament date

Before 2011, the sole OWGR cutoff for entry was the top 50 as of two weeks before the tournament. An exemption category for the top 50 as of the tournament date was added for 2011, apparently in response to the phenomenon of golfers entering the top 50 between the original cutoff date and the tournament (such as Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler in 2010).^[1]
Through 2011, exemptions existed for leading money winners on the PGA, European, Japanese, and Australasian tours, as well as winners of multiple PGA Tour events in the year before the U.S. Open. These categories were eliminated in favor of inviting the top 60 on the OWGR at both relevant dates.^[1] Starting with the 2012 championship, an exemption was added for the winner of the current year's BMW PGA Championship, the European Tour's equivalent of The Players Championship.^[2]
Potential competitors who are not fully exempt must enter the Qualifying process, which has two stages. Firstly there is Local Qualifying, which is played over 18 holes at more than 100 courses around the United States. Many leading players are exempt from this first stage, and they join the successful local qualifiers at the Sectional Qualifying stage, which is played over 36 holes in one day at several sites in the U.S., as well as one each in Europe and Japan. There is no lower age limit and the youngest-ever qualifier was 15-year-old Tadd Fujikawa of Hawaii, who qualified in 2006.
The purse at the 2011 U.S. Open was $7.85 million, and the winner's share was $1.44 million. The PGA European Tour uses conversion rates at the time of the tournament to calculate the official prize money used in their Race to Dubai (€5,574,524 in 2011). In line with the other majors, winning the U.S. Open gives a golfer several privileges that make his career much more secure if he is not already one of the elite players of the sport. U.S. Open champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors (the Masters, the Open Championship (British Open), and the PGA Championship) for the next five years, as well as the Players Championship, and they are exempt from qualifying for the U.S. Open itself for 10 years. They may also receive a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour, which is automatic for regular members. Non-PGA Tour members who win the U.S. Open have the choice of joining the PGA Tour either within 60 days of winning, or prior to the beginning of any one of the next five tour seasons. Finally, U.S. Open winners receive automatic invitations to three of the five senior majors once they turn 50; they receive a five-year invitation to the U.S. Senior Open and a lifetime invitation to the Senior PGA Championship and Senior British Open.
The top 10 finishers at the U.S. Open are fully exempt from qualifying for the following year's Open, and the top eight are automatically invited to the following season's Masters.