US Open By The Numbers
NEW YORK, NY, USA – One hundred and twenty-seven matches, 292 sets, 2680 games and 17,520 points over thirteen rainy, windy and occasionally sunny days. And that was just the singles. While numbers never tell the whole story, when it comes to the 2016 US Open, they certainly make for a good read…
8,628,207 – The $3,500,000 cheque Angelique Kerber received for picking up her second Grand Slam took her 2016 winnings to $8,628,207. Her previous best total annual total was $2,139,358 (2013).
65,797 – Hugh Grant, Anna Wintour and Vanessa Williams were among the 65,797 attending the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on the middle Sunday – a single-day attendance record.
309 – Serena Williams’ third-round win over Johanna Larsson was her 307th at a Grand Slam tournament, overtaking Martina Navratilova for sole ownership of the Open Era record. Two further victories, took her total to 309 – a number not matched by any player, male or female.
186 – However, Serena’s semifinal defeat to Karolina Pliskova meant that her was unable to overtake Stefanie Graf’s record of 186 consecutive weeks at No.1. Her replacement, Kerber, is the first German to hold top spot since Graf in March 1997.
182 – The number of minutes needed by Kateryna Bondarenko and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to win their second-round thrillers over Zheng Saisai and Kristina Mladenovic, respectively – the longest matches of the tournament.
126 – The speed in miles per hour of the fastest serve of the fortnight, hit by Serena.
81 – Serena’s 120mph bombs helped her win 81% of her first service points.
72 – At Wimbledon, Venus Williams matched Amy Frazier’s Open Era record of 71 Grand Slam appearances. The evergreen American moved out in front on her own when she stepped on Arthur Ashe to face Kateryna Kozlova. Sister Serena, though, is hot on her tail, taking her tally to 65 this fortnight.
52 – Jelena Jankovic has now played in 52 consecutive Grand Slams. The Open Era record of 62 is held by Ai Sugiyama.
46 – Caroline Wozniacki jumped 46 spots from No.74 to No.28 in the rankings after her run through to the semifinals.
34 – Kerber broke serve 34 times en route to the title.
33 – The longest rally of this year’s tournament was 33 shots and came in the second set of the second-round encounter between Elina Svitolina and Lauren Davis. Eventually it was Svitolina that emerged triumphant, although not before the pair had another epic exchange, this one lasting 32 shots in the fifth game of the third set.
22 – There were 22 Americans in this year’s singles draw – 12 more than any other country.
20 – At the start of the tournament there were 20 players aged 30 or older. By comparison, there were only eight teenagers.
16 – At just 16 years and 336 days old on the opening Monday of the tournament, Kayla Day was the youngest player in New York.
11 – Runners-up Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic won 11 consecutive sets in the doubles draw. They had the chance to make it a perfect 12 in the final against Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova only to be broken when serving for the match.
6 – The number of players at this year’s tournament who were yet to be born when Venus made her US Open debut in 1997: CiCI Bellis, Kayla Day, Sofia Kenin, Ana Konjuh, Naomi Osaka and Nadia Podoroska.
2 – Kerber is the first player not named Serena to win multiple majors in a calendar year since Justine Henin did so in 2007.
1 – Runner-up Pliskova was only one year old the last time a Czech player (Helena Sukova) reached a US Open final, in 1993.
