US Open (tennis)
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The US Open Tennis Championships, commonly called the US Open, is a hardcourt tennis tournament organized by the United States Tennis Association annually in Queens, New York City. It is chronologically the fourth and final of the four Grand Slam tennis events, held after the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon. The US Open starts on the last Monday of August and continues for two weeks, with the middle weekend coinciding with the United States Labor Day holiday. All players participating must be at least fourteen years old. Since the start of the Open Era of tennis in 1968, the event has been open to both amateur and professional players. The tournament is one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, originally known as the U.S. National Championships, for which men's singles and men's doubles were first played in August 1881. The tournament originally took place in Newport, Rhode Island from its inception until 1914. It is the only Grand Slam that was not affected by cancellation due to World War I and World War II, nor interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The tournament consists of five primary championships: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles. The tournament also includes events for senior, junior, and wheelchair players. Since 1978, the tournament has been played on acrylic hardcourts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, New York City. Revenue from ticket sales, sponsorships, and television contracts is used to develop tennis in the United States. This tournament, from 1971 to 2021, employed standard tiebreakers (first to seven points, win by two) in every set of a singles match. Since 2022, revised tiebreak rules were initiated and standardized in the final set for all four majors, where if a match reaches six-all in the final set (the third for women and fifth for men), an extended tiebreaker (first to ten points, win by two) is played. The introduction of the extended tiebreaker in 2022 was part of a broader effort to standardize play across the Grand Slam tournaments, ensuring consistency in how matches are decided while also addressing player fatigue and match duration.