The US Open Series returns for its 18th season in 2021, featuring its largest schedule since 2013. Nine WTA and ATP Tour summer tournaments will be played over six weeks leading up to the 2021 US Open, launching this week with the Hall of Fame Open, an ATP 250 event in Newport, Rhode Island.
A year after every US Open Series tournament but the Western & Southern Open was not held because of the COVID-19 pandemic, every Series event in the United States is returning with fans in attendance—five of which currently are set to feature 100-percent capacity—while the Hall of Fame Open and the new Tennis in the Land WTA 250 event in Cleveland will feature as part of the US Open Series for the first time. View the full schedule and learn more on USOpenSeries.com.
Tennis Channel will have exclusive, live coverage of all nine tournaments in 2021, both on television and streaming service Tennis Channel Plus. The US Open Series will also continue to serve as an incubator of innovation, as seven of the nine tournaments will utilize Hawk-Eye Live electronic line-calling on all competition courts in 2021.
Ahead of the Newport men's event, USTA.com caught up with 2018 champion Steve Johnson for a Q&A. Johnson endured a traumatic start to 2021, with his newborn daughter, Emma, requiring ICU stays due to low oxygen levels. But things are looking up for the 31-year-old now, both personally and on the court, where he notched wins at Roland Garros and Wimbledon to set himself up for sucess in the Series.
Read on for more from the California native and Newport No. 6 seed.
Q. I'm sure you're excited to be back in the U.S. after a couple of months over in Europe. Can you share how you spent your time the last week or so in between Wimbledon and Newport?
Steve Johnson: Yeah, I just was home. I was hanging out with my wife and daughter, just hanging out with family and spending time at home. That's my life right now. I got to sneak out and play golf one day, so that was that was fun. But other than that, I’ve just been enjoying it, kind of the new normal now, which has been great.
Q. You put together some nice wins at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, especially that five-set comeback over Frances Tiafoe in Paris. You're coming to the U.S. now, getting back home, your game is starting to pick up. Does it feel like things are coming together at the right time?
Steve Johnson: It's no secret I haven't played much this year, just kind of with everything that's happened with my family and my daughter and everything. And then just waiting for the normalcy of life, hopefully getting back here in the States and just not wanting to be in a bubble and get stuck somewhere while everything was going on.
I just had such a bizarre start to the year. I've never been a great starter in my years. And this year, without playing much and pretty sporadically, it was hard to kind of get my rhythm and feel. And I feel like I've gotten a good rhythm now.
I hadn't won a match until the French Open this year. Only played a few tournaments, but it was great to come back and beat Frances, somebody who had been playing well, and to come back from two sets down was the kick start that I needed in my year. I feel like I've been playing good tennis since then. A couple of the matches haven't gone my way, at Wimbledon, at Roland Garros in the third round, but that's life. So now you bring those positives and those experiences to this swing, and somewhere I feel very comfortable in the U.S., this North American swing. So hopefully I can really hit the ground running and get off to a good start.
Q. Going back to what happened with your daughter, Emma, earlier this year. It was very scary incident that you had endure. Does that give you a different outlook on your tennis and your career now? Does it make you look at the sport any differently?
Steve Johnson: I think I look at the sport much differently now. I'm not as consumed with, maybe, the results as much or how the day has gone. Whenever I'm home and I'm practicing, or I lost on the road and FaceTime with my wife and see her smile and see Emma smile and laugh, it's like the rest of the day really has no bearing on how life really is. So it's for me it's been very eye-opening.
You know, I figured this would be something that would happen, but to see it happen first-hand has been really remarkable. We spent a few times so far in the in the ICU with her. All things considered, there are definitely kids that are going through a lot harder and much more heartbreaking things than her. And just seeing the strength of the parents and everybody in there, it's really impressive. And it's something that my daughter will probably never remember, obviously, since she's so young. I know she got her toughness from her mom. So we'll be all right on that one.
Q. Will your family travel with you at all this summer? Did they come to Newport?
Steve Johnson: They're here. This is their first trip. We flew in Friday. It was quite the excursion. We had myself, my wife, Emma, Sam Querrey, Abby [Querrey’s wife] and Ford [Querrey's baby boy], and my father-in-law all in the same plane. It was pretty entertaining. Sam and I, we go way back since we were kids, 8, 9, 10 years old. To still be friends, to still be playing tennis for a living now… We played 10 years on tour. I played 10 years almost with no child. And now we both brought our families here and we're traveling together. It's really crazy to think about.
So they're here, and Emma came to practice for a little bit. And it's just fun to see the transformation, I guess, of all of our lives. Going from young and trying to figure out this world to now, very settled and have families. And our purpose is much greater in life.
"New York's not right without fans." - Steve Johnson
Q. You mentioned Sam Querrey… Among the Americans, what's the buzz like to get to get back on home soil and play in front of the fans?
Steve Johnson: The buzz is high for fans. The buzz is high for normal life, going to dinner, enjoying leaving the hotel, not eating with a plastic fork and knife out of your room and not being able to leave your room. And we're all very, very much looking forward to that here, in Atlanta, D.C., Cincinnati, all these tournaments that we could go back to whatever normal was or whatever normal is going to be for a while, that we could kind of enjoy life outside of the tennis courts. I think that's what we miss the most, because none of us brought our families anywhere and none of us brought our families to the bubbles just because you can't leave the hotel. You know, this is not it's not a great environment to be with newborns, with families and stuff. So we were all kind of just biding our time, waiting for now.
We're all going to push hard with the rest of the year. And we're all very excited to get back on home soil and get back to some fans. That's why we play. I mean, we all love tennis, but we all enjoy having people around—the buzz and the crowds and the atmosphere makes a big difference for us.
Q. Looking at Newport... I know you've played quite a few times and won the singles title in 2018. It's an amazing setting, a great town. What about that tournament is so special to you that you’ve come back so many times.
Steve Johnson: It's part event, it's part city, it's part being back in the States. There's a lot of different parts to it. I love coming here. It's a great city in the summer. There are always a lot of people, there's always good buzz around.
You get to walk to the courts. You get to walk down by the water to dinner. It's a very peaceful environment to kind of get your feet wet back into—especially after the stress of Wimbledon, just being at a Slam—to now kind of kicking your U.S. summer swing off in a nice kind of... I wouldn't call it a sleepy environment, just a bit more of a slow environment. You don't have to fight traffic in a car to get to the courts every day. You walk. It's just a bit more relaxing. Everybody usually brings their families here now. It's just a bit more relaxing than a lot of events, and I think that's a huge piece to why a lot of us come back to Newport.
Q. There’s some added excitement with Newport now being part of the US Open Series. Looking ahead to the US Open, it’s going to be 100-percent capacity for fans. Tickets went on sale Monday morning. It's going to be an electric atmosphere once again, which we’re all looking forward to. What was your reaction when you first heard it's going to be at full capacity?
Steve Johnson: I was hoping that they would say that, because when you're watching MSG [Madison Square Garden] and hockey games in New York and basketball games be full capacity indoors... the US Open better be full capacity, since it's an outdoor event.
I tell you what, one of the coolest moments that should have happened at the US Open is one of the worst moments that I've had. Playing last year, John [Isner] and I—such a bummer we had to play first round. We're playing in Armstrong, Monday night, night match, 7-6 in the fifth, and there's four people in the stands. It was one of the most depressing settings I've ever played in, and it should have been one of the greatest atmospheres that we could have had—two Americans at the US Open and that kind of a match. John and I played a couple of night matches in D.C., for that matter, and the crowds were amazing. I'm so happy that the fans are back. It was oddly eerie walking around, being able to walk the grounds in New York last year and just sit wherever you want and not worry about people.
New York's not right without fans. My goodness, we need that. It's it just doesn't have the right feel to it. New York's chaos, organized chaos. So it's that's the way you want it to be.
Q. Just to briefly touch on the hot topic in the college game… of course you're working with Peter Smith now, your former college coach at USC. Have you guys talked at all about the name, image and likeness rule changes and how it might affect the college game? Or how it might have been if it was like that when you were playing?
Steve Johnson: It would have probably been nice. I mean, I don't know. Look, we're tennis players, so we're not the starting quarterback at USC who's got a much bigger market. But Peter, he's a coach, he's like a father, he's somebody that I'm very close with. We don't talk too much college tennis anymore since he's not at USC and I'm kind of out of the [college] game and my priorities have shifted. But I think it's great.
I have this conversation a lot. I go back and forth with a lot of people about this whole thing. I hope it doesn't open Pandora's Box for a lot of different things. But I think it's great. Especially football players and these people who are bringing millions and millions of dollars to the university. Their sport is short-lived. One day could ruin their career and their chance to earn money for their family and everything. So I think it's great now. I think there's still a lot to be learned about it and a lot to kind of realize what's going to work, what's not going to work. But I think it's great.
I hope it works out. I hope the NCAA will give Reggie [Bush] his Heisman back, on the USC front. So hopefully they'll give that back to him and they'll right a couple of wrongs there. We'll see what happens. Hopefully the tennis players can make a name for themselves in this in this world and make some money off it.
