US Open (tennis) US$25,000 each. Beginning in 1975, the tournament was played on clay courts instead of grass, and floodlights allowed matches to be played at night. In 1978, the tournament moved from the West Side Tennis Club to the larger and newly constructed USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, three miles to the north. The tournament's court surface also switched from clay to hard. Jimmy Connors is the only individual to have won US Open singles titles on three surfaces (grass, clay, and hard), while Chris Evert is the only woman to win US Open singles titles on two surfaces
2018 US Open – Women's Singles final Grand Slam women's singles final (the second Japanese able-bodied player overall after Kei Nishikori at the 2014 US Open, and fourth player overall after Nishikori, Yui Kamiji and Shingo Kunieda), and was attempting to become the first able-bodied Japanese player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam singles title. Osaka's personal admiration for Williams as a primary inspiration for her tennis career was a focal point of the media's interest in her rise. Upon defeating Maria Sharapova in her successful 2018 Indian Wells campaign, Osaka quipped, "There are three people I wanted to play, Venus, [Sharapova] and Serena. Now