Kate Flory - USO 2003

We arrived Saturday night, quite late, but driving into New York was amazing, the Sky line was all lit up, and looked marvellous! Our hotel was in Midtwon, all the players were staying in Midtown too, there were heaps of Official cars around, but I don't think anyone was staying in our hotel.
On Sunday morning after having the biggest breakst (and the best!) I've ever had, we happened to be walking down 39th Street on our way to the Empire State Building when I spotted Brad Gilbert! Well my dad is a huge Brad fan, so he belted over the other side of the street and asked him for a picture, which i took. He then shook his hand, and we carried on our way. but my dad was so excited! *lol*.
We then joined the queues for the Empire State building (9.15am). They weren't too bad, it was mainly the baggage checks at first, then the tickets queue, but it could have been much worse. We went in the Sky Ride first, which was wonderful, although my scrambled eggs didn't enjoy it too much... The we joined yet more queues for the lifts to the observatory. When we (finally) got to the top, it was breathtaking! It was a gorgous day and the official visibility was 25 miles! We could see the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Yankees Stadium, the UN building, Brooklyn Bridge. It was absolutely amazing! When I've uploaded my pics I'll put a link. We then had to queue to get back down and out *lol*. It was starting to hot up by then, so we decided to get a tube down to lower Manhatten to do the Statten Island ferry. We managed to do this for free as it was just leaving when we got there, so we ran onto the deck and no-one checked any tickets *lol*. It was fantastic going past the Statue of Liberty, we didn't get too close, but close enough. After this we went into Battery Park and saw the Twin Towers memorial, and then went to Ground Zero itself, which was very moving. We were all flagging by this point and so went back to the hotel (to stick feet in a cold bath) and have a quick cat nap. Later on that evening we went into central park, which was my favourite bit! We walked through, past the boating lake and the bands, to the John Lennon Imagine mosaic. There was a group of lads singing Beatles songs there. We also went to the place where he was shot, my dad thought there might be a plaque or something, but there was nothing to mark it. We then went back into Central Park and laid on the grass and watched the sun set. It was so nice and relaxing after the action packed day! For dinner we went to the Hard Rock Cafe New York. That was fabulous the atmosphere was kicking! But again, the size of the portions was far too large *lol*. We walked it off waling down Broadway. I had nagged everyone to do this ever since we arrived, and it was certainly worth it! My dad got so excited when he saw the cast of Chicago leaving the theatre he fell over the pavement *lol*. The we reached Times Square, which was amazing! I took photos of this too and will post them.
We got to the tennis early on Monday as we had to go to the Will Call office to collect our tickets. I have to say, it was very easy to compare Flushing Meadows to Wimbledon, and Flushing meadows did come up short. It had it's advantages, we walked off the tube straight to the tennis, whereas at Wimbledon its wuite a walk from the station, the queueus were much shorter, and all the matches were much more accessible. But Wimbledon is much bigger, and I don't know, just has something about it. Certainly the practice courts are much easier to view. We went straight to the practice courts on Monday as I was on my message book mission and you could only really watch one court. First up we watched Chanda Rubin on Arthur Ashe, she lost 6-4, 6-4, then the match of the day session (for me) Mardy Fish v Pim Pim. I was like the only person cheering for Pim Pim, but unfortunately Mardy was on a hot streak and Pim Pim couldn't really do much about it. I also have to mention here that people skit up the promenade seats at the back, but I found them to have an excellent view, you could clearly see who was who and who was winning the point. My dad dragged us to watch Greg Rusedski afterwards, five long sets in the heat! We were all flagging after an embarrassing and pathetic peformance by Greg and so went to get a drink (after checking the practice courts again). Whilst having a drink, Pim Pim walked past us, carrying two big bags of souvenirs bless him. We had about half an hour to kill before the night session started, so I went to wait by the players entrance, we'd seen lots of guys walking round all day, and so hoped to maybe see Lleyton's parents around, but there was no sign of anyone *sigh*. So we went in, extremely excited, for Kim's and Lleyton's matches. The opening ceremony was brillinat! The young girl who sang the National Anthem had one hell of a voice, it was a magnificent performamce! Kim got off to a bit of a slow start in her match, but soon dispatched Liu after she got into the groove. Then it was the Pete Sampras tribute, my dad went beserk with the camera as Pete was his absolte fave! Pete got real;ly emotional, it was a lovely ceremony. I wasn't ever much of a Pete fan, but you van't deny that he was a great player, and the tribute was very fitting. Then it was time for Lleyton! He was playing hot tennis after a bit of a dodgy first set!!!! He was getting so pumped up, it was an incredible atmospehere! During the third set, people were moving down to the front, so me and my dad moved down to sit just to the left of Lleyton's parents. Roger Rasheed, John Fitzgerald and Andreas were on the front row (plus someone else I didn't recognise), then on the second row were Lleyton's parents, Pim Pim and Pim Pim's coach, then on the 3rd row were Tom Ross and his wife and Kim's mum. When Lleyton won, i went up to Mrs Hewitt as she was leaving and said "Excuse me Mrs Hewitt, I'm Kate, on Kerrin Lee's web site we have been collecting messages for Lleyton to wish him luck for the rest of 2003." She smiled and nodded, so i said "I don't suppose you'd mind awfully giving it to him would you please?" And she said" Oh you want me to give it to him?" and I said "yes please" and she was like "oh of course I'll give it to him for you, thank you very much" Then as I turned to leave she was just having a flick inside it, and called after me and my dad, "thank you very very much" once again, so I think she appreciate it :-)I was as high as a kite after giving it to her, and she was so lovely!
OK, James Blake has just started, so I'll finish the rest of my report tomorrow!