August 7, 2015
Rock Creek Park Tennis Center (Capacity: 7,500)
Washington, DC
Ricardas Berankis vs John Isner
Final Score: 3-6, 7-5, 3-6
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My first ever live tennis experience came on a weekend trip to Washington, DC for an ATP 500 event. As the capital of the United States, the District is home to all three branches of government, housed in historic sites like the White House and the Capitol Building. As such, Washington is quite the tourist destination as the National Mall is the primary highlight with monuments galore and seemingly endless free Smithsonian Museums. Now known as the Citi Open, this stop has been a mainstay on the ATP Tour since 1969. Former winners include a laundry list of stars: Ashe, Connors, Lendl, Agassi (5 times), Edberg, Chang, Roddick and Del Potro. The summer event is now a middle tier, 500-level tournament that brings recognizable names and a few top ten players, but not a consistent flow of the game’s top talent. The women also began playing here starting a couple years ago. The Rock Creek Park Tennis Center has hosted the tournament since inception and most of the matches are in the 7,500-seat main stadium (of which I’m still not sure the proper name). While it is an older stadium with some discomforts, the intimacy makes for good sightlines all around.
Prestige Ranking: 3.5 out of 5
Location
Located along the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia, the rectangular, non-state district is where Washington lies. About four miles north of downtown is Rock Creek Park, DC’s largest green space and park. This area is popular for local outdoor recreation, but there’s really not much for visitors or tourists with just a small nature center and an old grist mill. The closest attraction is the National Zoo, which is a few miles away. On the right side of the park is the Tennis Center, which is near a heavily wooded section and an urban neighborhood. Downtown and all of DC’s primary hot spots are about 15 minutes away down 16th Street.
Location Ranking: 6.5 out of 10
Accessibility / Parking
Getting here takes some planning and boo to the Citi Open website for having no information until less than a month before the first match. Going by car is adventurous as DC is a notoriously difficult to city to drive in, with the local roads offering the biggest challenge. Thankfully, Rock Creek Park is outside the most challenging areas and with the entrance being on 16th Street, it is a predominately straight road (though Interstate access via 495 is far). Parking at the tennis center however, is strongly discouraged as the field lots are extremely limited without a pass and they close these grassy spots even with just a potential for rain. Instead, it’s best to use one of two parking garages (for free) near the University of DC. There is then a 25-seat shuttle that runs to the tournament from Connecticut Ave and we had no problem with lines for Friday Evening (not sure what the scene was like for the more crowded Sunday final). This shuttle is also accessible to the Metro Station across the street, which is the best way to arrive as DC has a great transportation system that is easy to follow. The Van Ness stop is located on the Red Line.
Accessibility / Parking Ranking: 5 out of 8
Exterior
Because of the surrounding hospitality tents, there’s not much to see on the outside of the stadium. Most of the exposed framework is hidden and a blue covering takes care of the upper deck. Only one corner of the stadium has a face as white block work is spruced up by the addition of some flowers and plants. In bronze lettering is “The William R. Morris Jr Memorial Stadium”, adding further confusion to what the stadium name is.
Exterior Ranking: 3 out of 10
Concourse
Fans entering thru the main North gate walk down the middle of a corridor with sponsor tents offering various grab bags. This leads into a central area outside the stadium, which is crunched for space as fans get food and try to find a seat at one of the limited tables. It was hard to move around here at dinnertime with a modest crowd, so I’m guessing the weekend is tougher to navigate. The rest of the grounds are easier to maneuver and enticing fans are a variety of activities including small lounges and games. Inside the stadium, the upper deck features an open area that on one side is worthless as it doesn’t connect to other parts of the stadium and it’s just blank space without even a garbage can. They’ve at least improved one end with a concession stand and places to sit. So much more could be done up here to sell food and spread out the crowd below. Another annoyance is the lack of bathrooms as fans have to actually exit the stadium to find a facility.
Concourse Ranking: 1.5 out of 5
Food
Food offerings include a decent assortment of typical sporting event concessions, with a few other good things not usually expected. The Thai stand in particular had several decent entrées and upstairs there were various Panini’s. Drinks are quite popular at the Citi Open, especially the pitchers of Sangria. Bulgarian wines were located on the other side of the stadium, while “Coffee & Munch” had a decent variety of that type of caffeine. Bud and Michelob featured prominently for beer, along with Goose Island.
Food Ranking: 6 out of 8
Interior
Intimacy is the best part of this older stadium with the majority of seats offering a decent, close view. I particularly liked sitting in the steep upper-deck, which offers a great angle. The only downfall is the metal bleachers, which make up 90% of the stands (the other 10% are blue chairbacks at one end). The upper deck extends for three sides, while down below on the lower level, terraced rows are at a much shallower incline. Striking me as very odd were the chairs for these “box seats”. They were in the form of party folding chairs and I have no idea why there is no permanent seating. Behind the open end is a grandstand that is fully covered, which is quite clutch in the often hot DC summer. Two corner sections that look like afterthoughts fill in the gaps. Moving back to the main bowl, between each seating level, a string of suites numbering 37 extend around the three sides. Ignoring the odd seating types, I liked this stadium and particularly enjoyed sitting higher up with the background park trees in the distance.
Interior Ranking: 9 out of 14
Scoreboard
End and corner video boards do an adequate job of displaying score, challenges and serve speed, along with stats during breaks. The quality wasn’t perfect, but there also was no issue seeing the video or the challenge animation. I was particularly intrigued by the separate, old-school boards above the upper side seating. These sun-worn scoreboards catered specifically to tennis with digital displays for points, games and sets. There were no ads and “Welcome to the Citi Open” is spelled across the top. More interesting was the need for a long, sticky pole (think of a gas station) to change the name of the competing players on this board.
Scoreboard Ranking: 3 out of 4
Displays
With a tournament rich in history, it’s good to see multiple recognitions for past champions. Near the less used South Entrance to the complex, a wonderfully landscaped “Citi Open” display is centered between a mantle of tennis racquets that features each tournament champion. A better display is inside the main stadium, where the blue façade above the suites include the year and champion. They even unveil the new champion at the end of the event ceremony. Up top around three sides of the seating bowl is a series of country flags, which look like they represent each player in the field.
Displays Ranking: 3 out of 6
Cost
The upper bleacher seats run between $45 and $55, depending on the day, while lower and grandstand seating costs $70 – $80. Awful online fees tack on another $11 to the price, so except for Sunday, it’s better to just buy tickets at the entrance. The prices are in line between the other US Open Series events and given this is a one week event, they’re not unreasonable. Parking is mostly free as the off-site garages do not charge tennis goers. Concessions on the other hand are out of whack as they exceed what I’ve seen at major pro sports events. A $9 cheeseburger, $7 slice of pizza and $11 meatball sub are steep and since some people can be here all day, they get away with it. All beers are $8, while fountain soda and water cost $4.
Cost Ranking: 6 out of 8
Fan Support
Crowds built up thru the week as early round play started with maybe a 1,000 people for the main stadium matches. It got better for our Friday Evening session as a couple thousand more joined and the increase in fans was more noticeable Saturday with the stadium well over half full for the Semis. The Sunday afternoon final featured nearly a full house as I would guesstimate 6,000 – 7,000 attending from what I saw on TV. It’s virtually impossible to find attendance figures online for the ATP Tour, so it’s hard to gauge fan support for the event. While crowds certainly lag behind the bigger 1000-level tournaments in the US and Canada, I believe this mid-level event does well for what it is.
Fan Support Ranking: 5 out of 8
Atmosphere
Tennis fans aren’t exactly boisterous; however you can certainly find some electric atmospheres in the sport (check out a night match involving an American at the US Open). Here in DC, the atmosphere started very slowly, but towards the later sets more “C’mon John” yells were heard. Great shots were met with appropriately louder cheers. For Sunday’s Final, it was good to see the crowd try to rally Isner before a decisive game with an extended cheer and even some people standing to applaud him on. Another neat aspect is the wide diversity of DC’s population, which helps to bring many fans supporting players from their original home country.
Atmosphere Ranking: 7 out of 14
Other Stuff
The facilitator for this event was the great Arthur Ashe, who wanted to see a tournament event in a park, instead of the usual stuffy country club setting that ruled the day. The integrated neighborhood near Rock Creek made for the right spot. Ashe played in subsequent years and won the event in 1973……While I know the Tennis Center name, it’s been a real struggle to figure out the main stadium title. It’s mostly referred to as the Rock Creek Tennis Center, but then there are occasions I hear it named after William H. G. FitzGerald. Then, the actual lettering on the stadium says “The William R. Morris Jr Memorial Stadium”, which no one uses and is not even Googleable….For the 2015 event, the Citi Open had by far the worst website out of all the other Summer events. Information for fans was very difficult to find until a few weeks before the event…..The tournament is played on hard courts and for the Men it is a 48-player field (the women have a 32-player tournament).
Game
In the third quarterfinal match of the day, 8th-seeded John Isner took on the unseeded Lithuanian, Ricardas Berankis, a product of multiple upsets that included Andy Murray getting knocked out. The 6′ 9″ American started strong as he only needed 28 minutes to win the first set 6-3. Quick games continued into the second, but it was a break at love by Berankis that came out of nowhere as he won 7-5. Isner started the last set very strong as he rapidly jumped out to a 3-0 lead, displaying emotion and getting the crowd more into it. He finished off the match with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 win. In his victory, Isner won 39 out of 48 points on his first serve.
Stadium and Arena Visits 
