Tennis Rivals

The tickets to US Open in New York are always scarce especially those that are front row are being sold for much more than their face-value by ticket brokers.

If you are planning to attend US Open for years to come, it is smart to become a member of the USTA (US Tennis Association) and it is for a good cause. USTa works hard to promote the game and make it available to young players.  The $42 per year dues for adults and $19 p.a. for juniors to become a member is defenitely worth the price. $10 of the membership fee is allocated to the subscription of the monthly tennis magazine and you can take a quick look at it to see what is going on throughout the year.

The major advantage of the membership is the preferred ticket access to pro tournaments throughout the the United States and this includes the US Open. A good front row seat at Arthur Ashe is worth all the effort and you will be supporting the USTA.

Here is the fee structure to become a USTA member and the table includes the discounts you can get for multi-year commitments.

By becoming a member, you can contact the USTA several months before the tournaments and ask to be provided with tickets allocated for members only.

If you are not a member or missed the deadline, one good option to get tickets is via Ticket Master. Ticket Master is being provided with a number of tickets to each game once they are made public. Normally, it is very difficult to get a hold of good seats thorugh Ticketmaster since there is usually a rush by both brokers and fans to get them as early as possible.

It is definitely worth checking out the Ticket Master website to see what seats are available. And, it is also possible to call Ticket Master and ask a representative what seats they see available on their secreens. US Open tickets are made available several months before the tournament. Ticket Master does not make all tickets available at once and prefer to sell them in batches. This helps Ticket Master to accommodate client requests during all those months and prevent having to tell every caller that they are out of tickets. These tickets made available at certain times usually include premium seats such as those in the AA row as well as others.

So, if you are willing to find great seats at face value, one smart strategy is to call Ticket Master several times a day for several weeks. If a customer rep tells you that nothing is available in the front, it is not worth trying to talk them into giving you seats because they are probably not available at the moment. However, you never know when more tickets will get availabe so it is worth calling frequently to see what is on the system.

Here is a scanned image of an AA row ticket that is courtside and in the middle purchased through Ticket Master after several tries. It is a pretty old ticket but it is the first one I found in my e-mail so here it is. We were able to get a lot of these through Ticket Master. You can see that it was purchased on June 30th and the event is actually on Sep 2nd.  Also, once you find a seat, you are usually able to find 2 or more seats next to each other so you do not have to worry about going there alone.

Of those tickets that are cancelled due to weather conditions, USTA will send you tickets for the following year on the same day. The request is usually done by sending them a letter and if you ask for similar seats, you will get them.

Good Luck to all seeking tickets to the greatest tournament in the U.S for 2010.

Please note that it is illegal in the state of NY to sell tickets for more than facevalue (or possibly something like %10 more than facevalue) so I hope you will be trying to get the tickets for your own use.