Taylor Townsend was 7 years old the first time she got to play at Arthur Ashe Stadium. She had won an essay contest and got to hit with Serena Williams, Roger Federer and other stars before the 2003 US Open got underway.
Eleven years later, Townsend made her main draw debut at the 2014 US Open and saw a familiar face in her first-round match at Flushing Meadows in the New York City borough of Queens: Serena Williams. While Townsend had technically been there before, and had a vivid memory of seeing Williams across the net, this time everything was different. In addition to the daunting task of facing Williams, the defending champion and the tournament’s top seed, this time there would be nearly 24,000 fans in the stands at the biggest tennis stadium in the world for a prime-time night match — and almost everyone would be rooting against her.
Townsend was a mix of nerves and excitement all day leading into the match.
“It’s definitely an experience I’ll never forget,” Townsend told ESPN last week. “We were the second night match so the crowd was prepped and primed with Honey Deuces [the US Open’s iconic cocktail]. It felt like everyone was a few Honey Deuces in. I was super nervous throughout; playing Serena just made me even more nervous than I would have been against anyone else, but I enjoyed every moment of it. The crowd, the energy, the atmosphere — it was amazing.”
Williams won the match convincingly 6-3, 6-1, but Townsend still looks back on the match fondly.
“Looking back, of course I say, ‘Oh, I wish I could have played this point different or done this differently,’ but at the end of the day, the experience that I had was the experience that I was supposed to have,” Townsend said. “And I wouldn’t change it, honestly, for anything. Because it kind of made me more hungry to want to get out there and to get back to that level, to play at that level, and to be able to perform my best on the sport’s biggest stage. There’s nothing else like it.”
Townsend’s story is one of many memorable debuts and performances on the court at Arthur Ashe. Every year a number of young, up-and-coming players, as well as longtime veterans, are given the tough task of facing some of the biggest names in the game in the early days of the tournament. Some, such as teenager Holger Rune against top-seeded Novak Djokovic in the first round in 2021 or teen Caty McNally against Williams in the second round in 2019, briefly capture the world’s attention by stealing a set, and an even smaller group of players do the unthinkable and pull off the surprise victory over a veteran superstar, like when then-18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz defeated third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in a decider during the third round of the 2021 tournament.
For Alcaraz, those in the stands made all the difference.
“I think without the crowd I couldn’t have the opportunity to play a great fifth set and be able to beat Stefanos,” Alcaraz said. “I think the crowd was really amazing. I really loved it.”
While many pros will say they don’t care where they play or against whom, most will admit there is something special about playing on Arthur Ashe. Bigger than any other tennis court in the world by more than 5,000 seats, and larger than the French Open’s Court Philippe Chatrier — the next-biggest stadium at a major — by more than 8,000, the size is just one part of the stadium’s lore. The New York location gives it an extra edge, as do the frequently raucous — by tennis standards anyway — crowds that sit inside it.
Over the first two days of the 2022 US Open, the court will host Stefan Kozlov (against reigning champion Daniil Medvedev), Leolia Jeanjean (against Coco Gauff), Sebastian Baez (against Alcaraz) and Rinky Hijikata (against Rafael Nadal) in the first matches of their maiden US Open main draws, as well as more experienced players — including Danka Kovinic (against Williams), Thanasi Kokkinakis (against Nick Kyrgios) and Alison Van Uytvanck (against Venus Williams) — in their Arthur Ashe debut.
Kovinic, Kokkinakis and Hijikata will all be during the night session, adding even more fanfare and attention to the task at hand. For McNally, it was the dramatic player introductions, and walking onto the court with a spotlight, that really made it sink in that she wasn’t playing just anywhere.
“What I remember first [about walking onto Ashe] was thinking, ‘Are they going to turn the lights on in here?’ because the court was like pitch black,” McNally told ESPN in 2021 about her prime-time match against Williams. “I felt like I was in a basketball arena or something. It felt so weird. When the lights finally turned on, I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s a lot of people in here.’ It’s really loud in there too. You can hear everyone in that stadium.
“I got to practice in there a couple of times in the morning with no one in there a day in advance and the morning of the match. It was totally different. I mean, when it’s packed, it’s just a different atmosphere, but it’s an incredible one and something really special to be able to play in front of all those people. I was obviously nervous but excited at the same time. I just wanted to do my best, show everyone what I’m made of and what I’m capable of doing out on the tennis court.”
The then-17-year-old McNally won the first set, becoming the first player to win a set against Williams in the second round at the tournament, and roared to the crowd, feeding on its energy and basking in the attention. She ultimately lost the match 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, and Williams went on to reach the final, but it remains among McNally’s most treasured memories from her career.
While some feed off the atmosphere, for others the attention can sometimes be overwhelming. For Gauff, McNally’s former doubles partner and the current No. 12 seed, the 48 hours of nonstop attention she received ahead of her 2019 Ashe debut added a lot of pressure. The then-15-year-old was coming off of an auspicious major main draw debut at Wimbledon where she reached the fourth round. Playing on the celebrated show court in the third round — against Naomi Osaka, the defending champion — seemed like the next step in her natural progression. She believed her own hype and was certain she would not only beat Osaka, with the sell-out crowd cheering her on, but would then win the title.
It was simply all too much.
“That was so stupid for me to believe that because [Osaka] had two Grand Slams at that point, and I was 15 playing my first US Open,” Gauff said. “I believed that I could win the match, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I thought that I was supposed to do something — not believe that I could do it. I actually thought I was expected to do it.”
Gauff was in tears by the end of the 6-3, 6-0 match. But Osaka was the first to comfort her, and she even encouraged Gauff to join her for a joint on-court interview. While Gauff cried as she spoke, the audience showed a different side and gave her a standing ovation and cheered loudly for her every word. There didn’t appear to be an empty seat throughout the interview.
Despite achieving incredible results since her Ashe debut, including reaching the 2022 French Open final, Gauff has yet to win a match on the court. She lost to Sloane Stephens in the second round in 2021, as well as in last year’s doubles final.
But this year she looks to reverse her fortunes on Ashe and record her first win on Monday against Jeanjean, an opponent she is expected to beat. Fortunately for Gauff, playing on Ashe gets easier over time, at least according to Townsend.
When Townsend, now 26, finally had a chance to play again on Ashe, in a second-round match at the 2019 US Open against two-time major champion Simona Halep, she was ready. With those in attendance firmly behind her, Townsend pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament that year and went on to advance to the first major round of 16 of her career.
“I drew from that first experience playing on Ashe,” Townsend said. “Mentally, emotionally, physically, game-wise, I was a totally different player and had made a lot of changes in that five years but I was still able to say, ‘I’ve been here before.’ The jitters and the nerves don’t stop, they were still there, but once I got into [the match], it was amazing and I felt really comfortable playing on that court.
“The crowd in New York, and especially on Ashe, is special. Nothing’s left unsaid, the emotions are always out there. It’s rowdy, things are loud, it’s fast-paced. It’s definitely not for the weak-hearted, that’s for sure. It makes you want to give the people a show.”