open sesame.

So apparently some things in life are free...

US Open 2008, Men's Singles, 1st round: Roddick vs. Santoro

Roddick's serve clocked in at an amazing 140 mph. Earlier, he had served a 147!!

You might be wondering...how did you manage to get such amazing shots of the tennis players? Did you have a press pass? And my answer to you would be - No, I sat in the front row.

And then you might ask...who did you sleep with to get such pimpin' seats at the US Open?

And I would respond - They were completely free.

I kid you not, the phrase "Ask, and you shall receive" really rings true with the following story. S and I showed up at Arthur Ashe stadium without tickets. During our (long) trek from the parking lot to the front door, S would randomly go up to couples on their way home and ask for their ticket stubs. Out of the kindness of their hearts, and also a little help from my beaming, innocent smile, people were pretty willing to dig into their pockets to find their crumpled tickets. We landed our first set of tickets, and I was already satisfied. But S would not stop there. He wanted to score some pimp seats. We collected a few pairs of ticket stubs, but none that were of baller status.

We then walked by the VIP area, and quickly asked a foreign couple for their ticket stubs as they exited the section. By distracting the doorman with icecream, we were quickly allowed reentry, and the entire VIP floor area was at our fingertips. We settled with some nice, mid-court seats on the 13th row. S then found his friends that were (legitimately) seated in the front of our section, and we rollllllled on down to the front row. Where I was able to catch glimpses of Roddick's sexy gut...

Yum??


-- UPDATE --

This is too funny. My post has been discovered by two major sports blogs, Deadspin and Machochip. And I'm not quite sure what angle they are taking (do they hate me?), but both of them seem to think that I used icecream as a way to get into the US Open.

Let me tell you how it really went down, in case any of you actually want to utilize this amazingly free tactic.

1. Discretely score yourself two US Open tickets stubs (see above).

2. Go up to VIP doorman/ticket-checker.

3. Ensure that your VIP doorman/ticket-checker is eating some sort of food item (ie: icecream, pretzel, hotdog).

4. While VIP doorman/ticket-checker is busy inspecting your already used ticket stubs, distract him by asking "Where, kind sir, did you find that icecream??" And instead of checking your ticket stub, he will look at your face and respond "Don't bother, it tastes horrible." All the while lifting up those beautiful red ropes to let you in.