Playing Tennis at the US Open Trivia Quiz

Answer: Arthur Ashe

The first US Open was played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, where the US National titles had been held since 1924. It was not until 1978 that the tournament moved to the newly-constructed centre in Flushing Meadows Park where it has since been held.

In 1997 the world's largest-capacity tennis stadium, officially seating over 23,000 people, was opened and named in honour of Arthur Ashe, winner of the inaugural Open when he defeated Dutch player Tom Okker 14-12, 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Arthur Ashe was not only the first African-American player to win this tournament, he was also the first to win Wimbledon and the Australian Open, as well as being the first appointed to represent his country as part of the American Davis Cup Team. In 1975, he was the recipient of the first ATP Player of the Year Award.

Answer: Rod Laver

In 1962 Rod Laver became the second man, after Don Budge in 1938, to win the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open, which are considered the four Grand Slam tournaments, in a single calendar year. As he turned professional shortly after that, he was not eligible to compete in them again until the Open Era, which started in 1968. He promptly won another Grand Slam, causing many to wonder how many he might have achieved in the interim! His victory came over fellow-Australian lefty Tony Roche, in a final (played on Monday instead of Sunday because the tournament had experienced so much rain) which I was fortunate to attend. Play started late, with a helicopter hovering over the ground to try and dry the grass to a playable condition. Roche won the first set 7-9, then there was a rain delay. During the break Laver changed his shoes, and came out with more secure footing, to win the next three sets 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.

If you include his professional titles, as well as the amateur and Open ones, Rod Laver pocketed an amazing 200 singles titles, more than any other player. From 1964 to 1970 he won at least ten titles each year, in an extraordinary display of dominance. This included a "pro Grand Slam" - an unofficial title referring to the three most prestigious professional championships, the US Pro, the French Pro, and the Wembley Pro.

Answer: Billie Jean King

In 2006 the USTA National Tennis Centre was renamed the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre, in tribute to her many contributions to the game. These included not only 39 Grand Slam titles (including four singles, five doubles and four mixed doubles titles at the US Open) and numerous Federation Cup and Wightman Cup victories, but also her off-court involvement in establishing the Women's Tennis Association, and the work she has done to gain recognition for the achievements of female tennis players. In 1973, she played a demonstration match against 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, admittedly not the greatest male player of all time, but who had beaten Margaret Court 6-2, 6-1 earlier that year. The televised match had the kind of hype associated with a boxing or wrestling match, and attracted a worldwide audience of nearly 100 million viewers, who saw King win 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

In 1972 Billie Jean King's victory in the French Open meant she had won all four of the Grand Slam tournaments, but did not hold all the titles at the same time. This is called a career Grand Slam, a distinction she also achieved in mixed doubles.

Answer: Chris Evert

Although she won the US Open six times, her record at the French Open is even more impressive, with seven victories between 1974 and 1986. In her entire career, she won 18 Grand Slam singles titles (and was runner-up another 16 times), and was ranked No. 1 in singles at the end of the year seven times.

Her winning percentage in singles when she retired (89.96%, with 1309 wins and 146 losses) was the highest in the Open Era, for either men or women. And on clay it was even better: 382 wins and 22 losses gives a winning percentage of 94.55%. Between August 1973 and May 1979 Evert won 125 consecutive matches on clay.

Her dominance of the game, and her relaxed-looking baseline play led to her being nicknamed "The Ice Maiden".

Answer: Martina Navratilova

Navratilova was a dominant figure in women's tennis throughout the 1980s, with a total of 332 weeks as the world's No 1 in singles, and 237 weeks in doubles. She continues to be the only person to hold all sorts of records, which won't be detailed here since they could be surpassed by another player. Sometime. Maybe.

Her record of titles, however, will not change, and makes an impressive list: 18 Grand Slam singles titles (her nine at Wimbledon singles titles including a run of six in a row from 1982 through 1987), 31 Grand Slam doubles titles (mostly playing with Pam Shriver as her partner - together they won the doubles Grand Slam in 1984, as part of a winning streak of 109 consecutive matches), and ten Grand Slam mixed doubles titles (with her 2003 victory in Mixed Doubles at the Australian Open playing with Laender Paes giving her a Career Grand Slam in that event).

She completed a Career Grand Slam in singles in 1983, when she won the French Open. She is the third woman to complete what is called the "boxed set" of Grand Slams, following Margaret Court and Doris Hart, who achieved theirs in 1964 and 1954.

In 1987, Navratilova won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the US Open, a feat dubbed the Triple Crown.

Answer: Steffi Graf

A Golden Slam refers to the amazing feat of winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal in singles in the same year, which Steffi Graf managed to do in 1988, the first player of either gender to do so. She also was the first tennis player, male or female, to have won each Grand Slam tournament at least four times.

Her five victories at the US Open came in 1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She also racked up seven Wimbledon titles between 1988 and 1996, six French Open titles between 1987 and 1999, and four Australian Opens between 1988 and 1984, for a total of 22 Grand Slam titles. Only one women before her had won more: Margaret Court.

Answer: Pete Sampras

"Pistol Pete" Sampras was the first man to win 14 Grand Slam singles titles (five at the US Open, seven at Wimbledon, and two in Australia). He held the No 1 world ranking for 286 weeks, including ending the year in that position six years in a row, from 1993 to 1998.

In 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999 he also won the end-of-year championships, a tournament that pits the top eight players for the year against each other. He turned professional in 1988, aged 16, and won his first Grand Slam title at the US Open in his second year on the circuit.

His final match was his 2002 US Open win over Andre Agassi, although he did not actually announce his retirement until nearly a year later.

Answer: Roger Federer

These three final US Open winners are still active, although their careers have been long enough to establish them as memorable champions, so any statement of what they have done is going to be out of date in a few years. That being said, it is appropriate to give some indication of their attainments, even if totals may change in the future.

The first man to win 20 Grand Slam singles titles, who held the No 1 ranking for 237 consecutive weeks between February 2004 and August 2008, Roger Federer has been nominated by some observers of the game as the best tennis player of all time. There are others who are also contenders, but supporters of The Fed certainly can make a good case. As well as his streak at No 1, he was in the top 10 for over 14 years, and only dropped out of that elite group for a few months between November 2016 and January 2017, when he made a stunning comeback to top-flight tennis after an injury layoff with a five-set victory over Rafael Nadal to win the Australian Open. He has won a Career Grand Slam, with (as of the time this quiz is being written) eight Wimbledon titles, six Australian titles, five US titles, and one French title (2009, when Nadal suffered his first-ever loss in the French Open, going down to Robin Soderling in the fourth round; Soderling succumbed to Federer in the final). As well as Grand Slams, Federer has an impressive record at the second-tier Masters 1000 Events, as well as winning the end-of-year title in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2011.

Answer: Rafael Nadal

In 2017, Rafael Nadal became the first player to win the same Grand Slam Tournament ten times, when he won the French Open. In that year, he had already become the first man to win the same Masters 500 tournament (with his voctory in Barcelona) and the same Masters 1000 tournament ten times (when he won in Monte Carlo). Going back, his first ATP win was in 2002, at the age of 15, and began a career that would see him break out in 2005 to be one of the top players in the game. That was the year of his first win at the French Open (on his 18th birthday), the climax of a streak of 24 match wins that included victories in Barcelona, Rome and Monte Carlo. Over the ensuing years, he developed his playing skills on other surfaces, and in 2010 became the seventh male player to win a career Grand Slam when he won in Flushing Meadows. Since he had already won a gold medal in singles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, this also gave him a career Golden Slam, the second player to do so (the first being Andre Agassi).

The on-court rivalry (and off-court friendship) between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer was one of the dominant features of men's tennis between 2005 and 2010, when they spent most of the time as the world's top two players. Because of this, most of their matches have been played in finals. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, they played in every French Open and Wimbledon final. The 2008 Wimbledon final, won by Nadal, has been ranked as one of the all-time great matches. Fans of the two players were also thrilled to watch the exciting final of the 2017 Australian Open, this one going to Federer in five sets.

Answer: Serena Williams

The Williams sisters have redefined the way women's tennis is played, but there was only room for one of them in this quiz. Serena was the first to win a US Open, in 1999, then Venus won in 2000 (when Serena had lost in the quarterfinals) and 2001 (when Venus defeated Serena) before Serena got hers back with a victory in 2002.

She followed with victories in 2008, 2012 and 2014, along with a number of finals appearances in the intervening years. She was ranked No 1 for 186 consecutive weeks, a record shared with Steffi Graf. Before she announced that she was taking a break from tennis due to pregnancy, she had racked up more Grand Slam titles (in singles, doubles and mixed doubles) than any other active players, her 39 victories placing her equal third with Billie Jean King on the all-time list, behind Margaret Court (64) and Martina Navratilova (59).

She has held all four Grand Slam titles at the same time twice, but not in the same year, an accomplishment she has dubbed a Serena Slam, but which is officially just another example of a career Grand Slam.

She and Venus, with whom she played for all 14 of her Grand Slam doubles titles, also completed this feat in doubles. The pair also won Olympic Gold three times, while Serena has a singles gold medal from the 2012 Games in London.