2009 US Open (tennis) Kim Clijsters, and James Blake. The popular tennis and music festival, which included interactive games, musical entertainment and tennis clinics, was hosted by television personalities Susie Castillo and Quddus. The first day of the tournaments saw many seeds get through pretty easily in straight sets: Roger Federer, James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt, Nikolay Davydenko and Radek Štěpánek. The day also produced a couple of upsets, when Mikhail Youzhny continued 26th seeded Paul-Henri Mathieu's horrible US Open record by beating him in four. While, tall American John Isner did the same to 28th seeded Victor Hănescu by ending the Romanian's 2009 bid
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