Like other building projects at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which sits atop soft, unstable soil, the new Louis Armstrong Stadium needed to be constructed with lightweight materials to remain structurally sound.
The stadium itself has been sturdy through its first week of the United States Open, but the women’s singles draw has crumbled within it, with four of the top five seeds losing there.
On Saturday, fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber and fifth-seeded Petra Kvitova became the latest top players to exit the Open at Armstrong Stadium. Kerber, the recent Wimbledon champion, fell, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, to 29th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova.