The best kept secret for NY area tennis fan is...

The US Open qualifying tournament which is one week before the actual US open begins. Cost: $0. That's right. All that will cost you is the subway fare going into Flushing. You will get to see 128 players each for men and women who ranked just outside of 100 battling it out for 16 qualifying spots. You could see from all side courts some of the up and coming new stars or old famous players or even good players who for one reason of another did not have enough ranking points so they have to go through qualifying. We saw Andy Murray, Arnold Clement, Bjornman etc last year all for fee. This year we saw Nicolas Lapentti, Wayne Arthur, Younes El Ayauio,(who was famous for playing a 5 sets match with Roddick in Aussie open a couple of years ago), Also Ben Becker, the player who eliminated Agassi this year! So as you see, this free tournament has some very high quality stuff. I'm just hoping the USTA do not start charging us for it like everything else.

Go check it out next year.