I’ve been to the US Open, Wimbledon and the Citi Open in DC, and I must say, my family and I absolutely loved my first day of tennis at Cincinnati.

Although we had an almost three-hour rain delay, the quality of players and play was fantastic. The best part of Cincinnati is the fact it is a more intimate venue and you get to see both the best women and men’s players in one location. From a value perspective, you just can’t beat it. Its easy to get to, there’s easy parking, you can access all courts rather easily. This is not something you can say about the US Open or Wimbledon. Both those tournaments are absolute headaches to navigate. 

For those of you that have never attended a session at the Cincinnati Masters, here’s what we were able to do in the eight hours that we spent at the tennis center. 

We arrived at 10am hoping to see tennis at the scheduled 11am time. Unfortunately, it was raining. We waited and waited, and for a while it seemed as though no tennis would be played. As we waited, we took advantage of the fan zone, where my nine-year-old son and I took turns at the serve speed booth. I clocked in a respectable 91 MPH while he clocked in a respectable 50 MPH for a 9-year-old. Feeling very good about ourselves, we decided to grab some cheeseburgers from the concession stands and sat with the rest of my family (my wife and my daughter) at one of the many outdoor bars available. This particular bar was a life saver because it had an umbrella that could shield us from that constant drizzle. 

Fortunately for us, the skies began to clear and the organizers decided that there would be play starting at 1:30pm.

We were excited and decided to got to one of the outer courts, Porsche Court, to watch Marta Kostyuk against Jasmine Paolini. Unfortunately for Marta, Paolini would make quick work of Marta. She would lose 6-2, 6-1. On to the next court we would go! 

We decided to go to the Grandstand to watch Matteo Berrettini against Felix Auger Alliasime. Alliassime would prevail in three sets. The Grandstand sits next to Centre Court and to be honest, it was a bit stuffy, with lots of people and after seeing Kostyuk in the more intimate Porsche Court, we decided we wanted to go back there. We briefly stopped by Centre Court where Venus Williams was playing. As awesome as it was that Venus would win, we did not catch her match because we were too busy trying to get back to Porsche Court.

Back at the Porsche Court we would see Anastasia Potapova vs Celine Naef, a Swiss up and comer. Great seats, great action and a great match. Potapova would prevail and off we went to Stadium 3 for Wawrinka vs. Nakashima! This was a super exciting match and will be completed on Tuesday because of a thunderstorm. Wawrinka was leading 5-2 in the third.

So, now to my final review of the courts. Our two favorite courts to watch matches at the Cincinnati Open have to be the Porsche Court and Stadium 3. Both those courts are big enough to house a few hundred excited fans but without giving up the intimacy of getting a really good view of these awesome professionals hitting lights out of the balls. 

Like always, don’t forget to jump on to the TennisPAL app to stay up to date on tennis news, find groups of friends to play with, and get a virtual coach to help with your tennis game.