How 9/11 'shattered the guise of safety' for tennis' travelling circus — SkimNews
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- Arthur Ashe Stadium will glow light blue from dusk until dawn as the US Open marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — which killed 2,977 people — with American flags at half-mast and a minute's silence before both of Friday's men's singles semi-finals.
- James Blake, who lost in the second round of the 2001 US Open won by Lleyton Hewitt, was in Augusta for a sweat test on September 11 and faced an anxious wait to confirm his New York-based father was safe; he drove a hire car back to Tampa when planes were grounded and called boarding his flight to Hong Kong two weeks later "definitely scary," telling BBC Sport that tennis players live in "a bit of a dream world" as a "travelling circus."
- The Ryder Cup, scheduled for The Belfry in England later that month, was postponed by twelve months following the attacks.
- Blake said the return of competitive sport helped the country recover, specifically recalling George W Bush throwing the first pitch at a Yankees game and leaving him "almost in tears," adding that the moment "signified we are back."
- Before the all-American night-session semi-final between Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, a giant flag will be unfurled on court as R&B artist JoJo sings The Star-Spangled Banner.
Why it matters: The ceremony gives a global tennis audience a public moment to mark 9/11's 25th anniversary, with Friday's all-American semi-final making the tribute unavoidable. Blake's account — grounded planes forcing an Augusta-to-Tampa drive, the Ryder Cup postponed a full year — concretizes how the attacks reshaped the sport's 'travelling circus' sense of normalcy.
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