US Open Tennis - 2006, a few Points

US Open Tennis Tournament, like other Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments in other places of the globe, are played in five major different categories:

§ Men’s Singles Championship
§ Men’s Doubles Championship
§ Women’s Singles Championship
§ Women’s Doubles Championship
§ Mixed Doubles Championship

Of course, there are Boys’ and Girls’ Junior Single Championships, but compared to the above adult championships, these Junior Championships are not getting too much propaganda in media.

Initially, the above championship games were played between non professional tennis players discretely and at different locations of the US at different times of the year. 2006 US Open tennis schedule has been released and can be planned accordingly. Let’s know about the past of this game.
In 1968, all the above five adult events were merged in a single tournament held at Forest Hills in Queens New York and the "Open Era" of the US Open Tennis Championship began.

Incidentally, the Open Tennis Tournament really became "OPEN" because it opened the door for the Tennis Professionals to take part in the championship and the event got the real maturity by this.

Because, previously, Professional Tennis Players were debarred taking part in the major Tennis Events and the popularity of these tennis events were fragmented.

After opening the Tournaments to the Tennis Professionals, the craze for the matches became sky high to the tennis loving spectators and revenue from the Tournament started increasing every year and all time great tennis players like Rod Laver and others were seen playing the tournaments.

The US Open Tennis Tournament was originally played in grass court but at Forest Hills it started playing in Hard Court.

Later in 1978, the venue of the tournament was shifted to its current home at Flushing Meadows, NY.

It is the toughest tournament in hard court and some specialists all time great players like Bjorn Borg never won the US Open Singles Championship, although he had won the Wimbledon Singles Championship for consecutive five years. It may be mentioned that the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament is played in grass court unlike US Open.

Ivan Lendl had shown miracles in this tournament. Unfortunately Ivan Lendl, although being the best player in the planet for a number of consecutive years, never won Wimbledon Singles title and in frustration once told "Grass – it is the food of the cows"!!

So players like Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe are the all time greatest players who excelled both in grass court as well as in hard court tournaments.

However, they have never been coveted with the Grand Slam title winning all the grand slam championships consecutively. .

At this age of Television and Internet, popularity of tennis is even much more and revenue for selling the telecasting rights to the television channels fetch enormous amount in favor of the Tournament Organization Committee.

That is why we see that prize money to the players is increasing every year and this year, the prize money has been increased to a whopping $18.5 Millions US.

To understand and enjoy the game one must be aware of the Tennis Rules which is available in the web site. If opportunity comes, I will discuss some special features of the Tennis Rules in future.

So much popular is the Tennis in the US, tennis betting is also a regular feature through out the world. There are a number of tennis betting web sites in which betting can be made on most of the things happen in a match starting from "who will be winner" to forecasting any match result to every events in the tournament..