Prashanth Iyer and Ashwin Verghese were on their way to beginning a day of tennis watching at the Louis Armstrong Stadium when they came upon a commotion around the practice courts at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
They were going to check out David Ferrer playing Gilles Simon. But as with most fans at the United States Open’s day sessions, there were options along with sudden realizations.
“I mean, Ferrer’s the No. 5 player in the world,” Verghese, 28, of Philadelphia, said. “But then we heard this was for Roger.”
Welcome to Roger Federer’s prematch hit with his coach, Stefan Edberg, under a broiling late-morning sun, where it was crowded, sticky and a smartphone festival of amateur photographers.
For Federer — product of Switzerland, celebrity of the world — the new bleachers above the practice courts were filled. The new fan runway behind the courts was jammed. The three rows of seating behind the outside fence alongside the courts were taken, and several more unruly rows of folks from behind called out as if they’d known Federer for years as the neighbor from down the block.
“I think many people would rather watch him practice than watch a lot of other guys play a real match,” Verghese said.
His friend Iyer, also 28, of South Brunswick, N.J., said, “I’m already good for the day.”
Never mind that Federer and Edberg, scheduled to hit on Court No. 5, on the side closest to the ground-level fans outside, had moseyed on over to Court No. 4, farther away, but actually providing fans in the upper bleachers a more centralized view.
Hardly a soul closer to Court No. 5 shrugged and left. Nobody complained. In the case of Federer, that apparently would be decidedly uncool.
“He’s my favorite of all time, my role model,” said Mary Beth Jackson, a 16-year-old tennis player from Pinehurst, N.C., who competes in U.S.T.A.-sanctioned events in the South. “It’s how he acts, how classy he is, how positive he stays.”
Over her blond hair, she had on a blue Federer cap and said she wore it everywhere but to school.
“When I’m playing, I always try to think: What would Roger do?” she said. The response to her rhetorical question: “Not throw the racket.”
Jackson did not have a ticket to Ashe, where Federer would defeat Marcel Granollers of France, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, to reach the fourth round. Several others watching the practice did have entry, but most said their seats were not close to the court and they lamented the vastness of Ashe that made it difficult to get a full appreciation of his balletic movement, his pure strokes.
Federer, 33, is known for his love of the sport and its environment, embracing what others might see as distraction. To reporters last week, he endorsed the new practice access as a good fit with the world’s most boisterous Grand Slam.
“You don’t feel as much privacy and all that stuff,” he said. “But that’s fine. We’re at the U.S. Open.”
For longtime Federer admirers, the courts are a gift from the tennis gods, or in this case the U.S.T.A.
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