Too noisy under the roof at Arthur Ashe? Players deal with it
NEW YORK — Rafael Nadal stood at the baseline of Arthur Ashe Stadium court Wednesday night and waited to serve, looked up and then waited again. Chair umpire Cedric Mourier was making an announcement.
“Players are ready, please,” Mourier said into his microphone, though few could hear him. “Please. It’s a bit noisy, thank you very much.”
While the new roof over the biggest court at the U.S. Open is keeping one unwanted thing out — rain — it’s keeping another unwanted thing in: Noise.
"It's never been this loud," John McEnroe said on ESPN.
“Yeah, that surprised me,” Nadal said of the heightened noise after a routine second-round win. “(There) was a little bit more noise than usual.”
The $150 million roof project that the USTA announced in 2013 was completed before the U.S. Open this year, and Wednesday night Nadal became the first player to win a match under a closed roof as rain fell. But regardless of whether the roof is closed or not, the noise generated by tennis-watching fans inside — particularly during the nightlife-inspired evening session in Flushing Meadows — reverberates off of the roof structure to create a constant hum that makes it nearly impossible to hear the ball being struck, much less the score being announced.
“I felt a lot of noise on the court,” said Nadal’s Spanish compatriot, No. 3 seed Garbiñe Muguruza after an upset loss.
Had she experienced such noise on a court before? “Not that noisy,” Muguruza offered.
But whether or not the noise will create a greater issue and become a flashpoint with players moving forward is yet to be seen.
“This is New York. Yes, there is crowd noise and yes, we want them to come and be excited and cheer,” said USTA executive director Gordon Smith. “We think over time the fans will adjust and the players will adjust. It’s obvious that there was going to be more noise in a closed environment versus an open environment. This is a learning year for us, a learning year for the players and the fans, and we’ll look at doing things differently in the future to deal with that.”
Perhaps it is time for tennis to move forward, and shed its “Quiet, please” past during play.
Darren Cahill, the ESPN commentator and coach of No. 5 seed Simona Halep, thinks so.
“Over the last 10 to 15 years we’ve relaxed a little bit,” he told Paste BN Sports in an interview. “I think you’ll find that stadiums have a more natural ambiance of sound than they used to, when you would be able to hear a pin drop. This is not Wimbledon … This is the U.S. Open and it’s the U.S. Open for a reason. Players have to deal with all sorts of adversity here: The heat, the humidity, the noise, the smells. … That’s what makes this tournament so difficult. You don’t want silence in New York. You need this place to feel alive, electric. A little more noise for me isn’t a negative thing as long as we get the good matches to back it up.”
Smith said no formal complaints have been brought to the tournament from the players, though the issue has been a topic of conversation at daily morning meetings with officials.
Nadal said there was not much difference between the noise with the roof open or with it closed. Parts of the stadium remain open-air, as the building was not transformed into a fully indoor stadium with the addition of the roof.
“(It) was a little bit strange,” Nadal said, furrowing his brow. “For moments was little bit too much during the points. I always love the energy and the noise of the New York crowd. Is just fantastic. You know, I feel very close to them because I play with a lot of passion, and they give me that electricity, that passion, no?”
Andy Murray played on Ashe during a storm Thursday, pounding rain on the closed roof making it even harder to hear. He beat Marcel Granollers in straight sets.
“You could hear the line calls, but not so much when the opponents —you know, when he was hitting the ball or even when you're hitting the ball, really, which is tough purely because we're not used to it,” Murray said. "We use our ears when we play ... That's what makes it challenging.”
The new roof has clearly brought shelter and one other thing: It’s brought the noise.
“It's part of the U.S. Open,” said Caroline Wozniacki, who won a day session match Wednesday in Ashe. “The crowd is loud. The crowd gets into it. I love that about this tournament.”
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