Laura Freeman
It was late-March in New York, just five months but seemingly a lifetime ago, and the leaders of tennis in the United States already knew that this year’s U.S. Open would be unlike anything they had ever experienced, if they could stage it at all.
With much of the world, and especially New York City, reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, they had no idea where or when the Open might take place, or if anyone would bother to show up for an event held in the city for more than 100 years, one of its biggest and most economically important festivals.