Tennis, or terriers? U.S. Open’s residence hosts famed canine present

NEW YORK — They’re on the prime of their sport. They’re primed to run down tennis balls. So maybe it’s completely pure that about 3,000 top-flight canines are converging on the grounds of the U.S. Open tennis event, the place the Westminster Kennel Club canine present started Saturday.

It’s a brand new venue for the practically 150-year-old occasion, now again in New York City after a two-year, pandemic-induced sojourn within the suburbs.

As the present started Saturday with an agility competitors and different occasions, there have been a couple of double-takes, if not double-faults.

Barks, not the pock of tennis balls, had been heard throughout the sunny, 40-acre (16-hectare) grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Westminster’s conventional inexperienced carpet had been rolled out in Arthur Ashe Stadium for fleet-footed – however four-footed – rivals.

The fan-friendly South Plaza was arrange with a 27,000-gallon (102,200-liter) pool for a canine dock=diving demonstration. Turn in any path, and a canine of some kind was more likely to be passing by.

“It’s kind of weird to see them out and about at a place where you don’t usually see dogs,” spectator Haili Menard mentioned as she watched within the dock diving to select up pointers for her Dalmatian again at residence in Bristol, Connecticut. Menard had been to the U.S. Open however by no means to the Westminster present.

PHOTOS: Tennis, or terriers? US Open’s residence hosts famed canine present

“The sport of it is highlighted” by the environs, she mentioned.

Up on the artificial-turf-covered platform, Fletcher the Malinois took the plunge. Owner Jenine Wech had been fast to signal him up for the first-ever dock-diving demonstration at U.S. dogdom’s most illustrious present.

“We’re never going to get to Westminster any other way,” laughed Wech, of Schellsburg, Pa. When not doing dock diving or different sports, Fletcher works as a bedbug-detection canine.

For most of its historical past, Westminster was held in Manhattan, the place the present lengthy topped its prime canine at Madison Square Garden. In order to carry the occasion open air throughout the COVID-19 disaster, organizers moved it to the grounds of an property in suburban Tarrytown, New York, for the final two years.

The membership was wanting to return to New York City and initially envisioned going again to the Garden. But amid elements together with building plans at a Manhattan pier constructing that previously hosted a part of the present, the tennis heart emerged in its place.

Besides internet hosting one in all tennis’s Grand Slam tournaments, the ability in Queens additionally has had wrestling and video gaming competitions in recent times. Its administration embraced letting canine have their day.