The final tennis Grand Slam of 2016 gets underway this month and Andy Murray will be hoping to continue his run of good form. But what about the US Open itself, why is it so special? Let’s take a look at the numbers involved.
1
Of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the US Open is the only one to have been played on all three major surfaces: clay, grass and hard. They were initially played on grass until 1975, until they changed the surface to clay. The clay surface wasn’t used for long though, as the tournament changed to a hard surface in 1978, which it is still played on today.
5
Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer have all won the men’s singles competition 5 times.
19
Pete Sampras became the youngest winner of the men’s singles competition, aged just 19 years and one month old.
85
The cost of the cheapest available tickets is $85 or £64.40.
129
Venus Williams recorded the fastest serve in the women’s tournament in 2007, when she served at 129 mph.
130
130 hours of the US Open will be broadcast on live television.
138
Since the first US Open in 1881, there have been 138 different players who’ve won singles titles. This breaks down to 73 men and 65 women.
326
The longest match ever played at the US Open was 326 minutes, or 5 hours and 26 minutes. It was the semi-final between Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang in 1992.
1973
1973 was the year in which equal pay for both men and women was introduced for the winner. It’s still the only tournament to do so.
1994
Andre Agassi became the first unseeded player in US Open history wo win the men’s singles event in 1994.
2006
The 2006 US Open was the first to make official use of hawk eye technology. Players were now allowed to make two challenges per set.
9000
9000 staff will be on hand over the two weeks of the tournament.
23,000
The Arthur Ashe stadium has a crowd capacity of 23,000.
70,000
The number of balls that will be used in this year’s tournament.
700,000
An estimation of 700,000 people will attend this year’s tournament over the two weeks.
2.1 million
The US Open is expected to be mentioned 2.1 million times over social media.
3.5 million
The winner of both the men’s and women’s singles event will pocket $3.5 million in prize money.
46.3 million
The total prize money pool for all players adds up to $46.3 million. This is a 10% increase from 2015.