US Open: The big one in the Big Apple

Nowak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka battled it out on in the men's final on Center Court in 2016. This photo gives you a rough impression of the view you would have had if you had managed to get yourself a ticket for a seat in the nosebleeds. Wawrinka would go on to win this duel.

Arthur Ashe used a wooden racket when he played in the Forest Hills stadium in Queens, New York in 1965. In 1978, the tournament moved to its larger site at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. The main court, which holds more than 22,000 spectators, is named after Athur Ashe.

The matches can be long and the weather is usually hot and humid. This can take a toll on the players. In 1996, a few minutes after this picture was shot, the great Pete Sampras actually threw up on the court during his match against Alex Corretja. We could have shown you that, but you didn’t really want to see it, did you?

If you are looking for a quiet game of tennis, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is not the place for you! It happens to be located close to LaGuardia Airport. If you don’t like the noise you can complain, but making yourself heard could pose a problem...

"Foot fault," cried the woman on the chair during this 2009 match. Serena Williams was having nothing of it and did her best to make this clear. The line judge jumped out of her chair and…

…ran to the net and told the match referee, who called the head referee. He ordered Williams’ semifinal match against Kim Clijsters abandoned and awarded it to the Belgian. It was widely reported that Williams had threatened to shove a tennis ball down the line judge’s throat, something that the American denied having said.

IN 2006, Marcos Baghdatis struggled through a his match against Andre Agassi. Plagued by cramps, he struggled to complete its. Baghdatis is still on the tour, Agassi, of course, retired years ago.

The match, in which Baghdatis wound up unable to run around the court was the second last in the career of Andre Agassi in New York. The crowd gave both men a standing ovation after Agassi won 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 7-5. In his 2010 autobiography "Open," Agassi described his pain both on and off the tennis court.

Stefanie Graf rarely made mistakes with her backhand but her forehand was even better. In 1988 she faced Argentina’s Gabriela Sabatini in the US Open final and won 6-3, 3-6, and 6-1. Sabatini went on to have her own line of perfume, but Graf became a legend, helping, along with Boris Becker, to spark a tennis boom in Germany.

It would take until 2016 for another German to win at Flushing Meadows. This photo is from September 11, 2016, a day after Angelique Kerber had beaten Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in the final. Since then, things haven't gone her way. Kerber lost her No. 1 spot in the women's rankings - despite the absence of Serena Williams.

How could we forget this guy? He was in his prime when US men’s tennis was still powerful and nobody had heard of John McEnroe yet. Jimmy Connors, in this picture no longer using his old metal racket, won the US Open five times. His two-handed backhanders changed the men’s game.

Here’s another guy we can’t forget. This is Boris Becker after beating Ivan Lendl 7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 in the 1989 final. The often ill-tempered Lendl went on to become a cool golfer and even cooler coach. Becker is still his happy-go-lucky self. Last year he was appointed the "head of men’s tennis" by the German Tennis Association (DTB).

Alexander Zverev (above left) is still looking for his first Grand Slam and he has enlisted former Grand Slam winner Ivan Lendl (right) to help him refine his game. The men's No. 4 failed to make it past the second round in his two previous appearances at the US Open. The 21-year-old German is hoping that Lendl's tactical knowledge will help carry him much deeper in 2018.