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At U.S. Open, A Good Ticket is Hard to Find - The Daily Fix on Astini News

When four men from Luxembourg can't see their countryman play at the U.S. Open, you know the ticket situation has gotten out of hand.

Friday's day session sold out, leaving dozens of fans to navigate a confusing scene on the boardwalk. Fans seeking tickets thrust two fingers in the air or swarmed the booth of the tournament's official ticket exchange—where three employees kept busy by telling people that tickets stop being resold three hours before the session starts. One employee directed a fan to the Citi Field parking lot, which is on the other side of the elevated subway tracks, over 1,500 feet from the tournament grounds, the distance required for legal ticket reselling.

Some tickets were being sold, though volume was light. Kelsey Arbogast, a 26-year-old wearing a Rafael Nadal T-shirt, was hoping to find a ticket for $150 or less. "The cops told me we had to come here," she said. She broke out in tears as she recounted coming to New York from Oklahoma City for four days only to learn that the tournament schedule would give her only one chance during that span to see Nadal – and even that chance was slipping away.

Back on the boardwalk, four of the most passionate Gilles Muller fans around were chanting "we have no tickets, we want tickets" and holding their fingers in the air. They had bought night tickets–a bad bet, since the night session features just one men's match, and it rarely involves a Luxembourgian–and were hunting for day tickets. "We just want to cheer for our buddy," said Christian Schlesser, a 33-year-old consultant who said he and his friends had grown up playing alongside Muller.

By its nature, tennis makes it hard for fans to map out their attendance in advance. The full schedule for the next day of a tournament isn't available until the evening before. And yet the sport has a global fan base, some of whom book travel weeks or months before.

The Open recently has made life somewhat easier for fans in two ways. One is by releasing an early version of the schedule, covering the show courts and the entire night session, earlier in the day, at around 3 p.m., says Chris Widmaier, spokesman for the U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the Open. Getting a schedule out sooner—for, say, a Nadal fan to know she will see Nadal – would be impossible, says Widmaier, because of factors such as broadcasters' requests and how late doubles matches played by singles players go the day before. "Ideally the schedule would come out instantaneously," Widmaier says. "But we're human."

The other step is partnering with TicketsNow, a unit of Ticketmaster, to validate tickets for resale, an arrangement that began in 2008. Unlike with other resale sites, such as Craigslist, the Open tickets on TicketsNow have been validated to ensure they can't be sold twice, says Julia Vander Ploeg, TicketsNow's general manager. Tickets in some sections earlier this week were less expensive on TicketsNow than they were on Ticketmaster. But the site does tack on a 15% fee for buyers and a 10% fee for sellers—and it shuts down sales three hours before, in keeping with other sporting events, says Daniel Malasky, senior counsel for professional tennis for the USTA. Meanwhile, Malasky and other USTA staffers sweep the boardwalk to prevent unauthorized ticket resales.

All ended happily for the Luxembourgian contingent, which filed in for Muller's match with their countryman down a set and 3-0 in the second. From there he rolled, winning the last three sets against Ernests Gulbis to advance to the third round. On his way out, as his small contingent cheered, Muller turned and flashed them a smile and a wave.

During a changeover in the match, Schlesser explained that they got in by heading to the Citi Field parking lot, where their distinctive attire and face paint helped them land three tickets at below face value. That was good, but not quite as good as their haul for Muller's first match, when they were handed tickets for free. Schlesser managed to snatch up a fourth ticket for himself at face value just before a scalper bought it to resell at a markup. "It's very competitive," he said.

After his win, Muller said he didn't know how the ticket system worked. But he added: "If you're coming all the way from Luxembourg and can't get in, it's pretty bad." He noticed when his fans came in, at a point in the match when "it didn't look very good for me." Their support, he said, "for sure did help me a little bit."

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