WOW! What an incredible experience. First of all, thank you to Ward Hamilton General Manager at Robious Sports & Fitness, for giving Melissa and me this great trip that he won through the RTA raffle. Thank you to Joe and Shima Grover for donating the President's Box tickets. Friday we watched some great tennis including Safin, Monfils, Federer and watched Genepri lose a tough match to Celic, and we also met up with some friends from Richmond. The day concluded with one of the best dinner experiences we have ever had. The name of the restaurant was Spark's Steakhouse. The atmosphere, food and service were all perfect.
Saturday we got to wake up on our own, instead of the sound of one of our children calling at the crack of dawn. We met friends for breakfast and did a little shopping before we caught the shuttle to Flushing Meadows. We got to avoid lines to get in the stadium and when we got to the President's Box we were greeted very nicely by Shima Grover. From this point on it felt like we were treated like royalty! We went upstairs to have a wonderful lunch with Shima, Eric Perkins and Tracy Jones (sitting in for Chrissie who just had a new baby). After lunch was probably our favorite part of the trip ... we got a tour of Ashe Stadium! We saw the media rooms, interview rooms (in which we sat in for part of an interview in a language we didn't understand), the players lounge, restaurant, spa, childcare room and excercise room. Can you believe they have a mini salon under there? Players can get a pedicue, manicure or haircut! During the tour, we got to see up close Jankovic, Monfils, Petrova, Djokovic; Melissa was pretty starstruck but thought giving Jankovic a hug was too aggressive!
This was a fantastic experience! Thank you again to all involved and to the RTA for driving this opportunity.
Cris and Melissa Robinson
