Breaking Back — S3E6: US Open Week One, the Influencer Problem and the $1,100 Empty Seat

Venus and Serena get Friday night on Ashe against Maya Joint, the player who put Serena out of Wimbledon. Combined age ninety. Nobody at the USTA has called it a farewell tour and everybody is selling it like one.

The rest of week one was about who this tournament is for now. An influencer at Arthur Ashe stood with his back to the court. His own box asked him to sit down. He said he was watching it on the TV.

• Nat filed ten hours from the grounds. Drake coming out of Ashe into a Tommy Paul match on Grandstand, nobody in the stadium able to hear Shelton's on-court interview, thirty-six minutes to get out of the building.
• Eleven hundred dollars for a lower bowl floor seat on a Wednesday afternoon, and the lower bowl forty percent full. Packed grounds, empty good seats, and Nat on exactly who that prices out.
• Alex Eala doubled the get-in price of a US Open ticket in twelve hours. ESPN put the Czech flag next to her name.
• JB ran influencers at the Delray Beach Open for twenty years. The Porsches, the handlers, the lanyards, and what happens when someone used to being the show works out that he isn't.
• The board at the top of round two. Nat likes Zverev and Fritz, won't separate Alcaraz and Shelton, and explains why DraftKings won't sell you a semifinal.

Sebastian Gorzny won a college wild card playoff and saved five match points to reach round two. At fifteen he was given a five percent chance to live.