The tennis was great but not enough seating around the bars and options for drink & food. Needs to step it up there.
Game was great. Getting home was horrible, there were no taxi's, Uber's - no one knew where to go, including the taxi's etc. Thought we might not get home.
Great event, well organized. People are friendly and it has a great atmosphere. Great experience for the whole family.
It is great to see this event return. It was great. Disappointing that the catering was not in the area downstairs in the clay court area. This provided much better atmosphere before entering Pat Rafter Arena.
Great event
I love going to the Brisbane international. The Pat rafter arena is great, such good viewing of the court/game.
My feedback would be that the outdoor area that used to be down where the players lounge and media areas are now was amazing and it’s not the same family feeling venue without this.
In the past you could really make an afternoon of it and sit on the bean bags with the kids and watch pre-match entertainment or games on the big screen, it used to create such a fun and enjoyable environment.
Now it feels just like it’s about the commercial value per SQM.
The restricted alcoholic menu is limiting for those that don’t drink what is on offer, obviously the sponsors play a key part here.
I understand that it must be a commercially sound event with good returns but don’t forget about the customer experience that goes further than the court, the venue setup and offerings are important too.
Had front row seats right behind the players towel box, which was great. Had a great 2 days of tennis.
Wonder tennis at a great venue. So happy to have this tournament back after the hiatus. Only thing that we would have different is the food and drinks options….not enough to them. The wait time for us to get a coffee when we arrived meant I missed almost the whole first set of Osakas match. Then my daughter missed almost a whole set getting some lunch. We usually take food so maybe it’s always that bad but I remember there being many more food options both down on the courts out the back and also 5ish years ago there being that lovely restaurant come bar outside over those courts. Either way we never waited that long before. Maybe next year get more help in. But tennis was fantastic and seeing Rafa on Tuesday night was the highlight & that’s really what it’s all about 🎾🎾🎾💚💖
Fab day
No atmosphere, even for the final the arena was max 1/2 full.
We arrived an hour early and spent 45 minutes looking everywhere, and I mean everywhere, for a parking spot. We then went back to the shuttle parking lot and found the line for the "every 10 minute shuttle" was very long and would probably take 30 - 40 minutes. We decided to go home and watch it on TV.
From the time we arrived in the South Shore Lot until arriving back there to go home we throughly enjoyed ourselves. We follow Tennis around the world, this was our 6th tournament in 2023. The venue was small, only 2 courts, which was less than some challengers we have attended. We were in Row A on the main court on the Umpires side, which restricted the line of vision. It appeared as if both ends were reserved for VIPs. We usually opt for for an end view if available.
Seats were very comfortable. We saw 3 singles on the main court and caught the end of a singles and a doubles on court 2 so we got value for our money, this being the Wednesday day session. I think as the week went on you would have had less matches which would put us off.
We are visitors from the UK, everyone made us very welcome. If we are in the San Diego area again when the tournament is staged we would attend again.
The timing however one week after the US Open meant that the field was not as good as had been advertised.
Top quality players, the tennis is so close to you. Not super expensive
The whole experience was wonderful.
I have been going to Citi Open for the last 20 years. I have been a great fan and mostly due to excellent free transportation/ shuttle they provided and reasonable ticket prices. But this year was a disaster!
First, there were multiple sites about the transportation with conflicting information. Second, we had tickets for 10 am session but no shuttle was provided before 1 pm! Third, the Gico parking was no longer available and we needed to park near designated parking area for $14. Fourth, we were instructed to take S1, S4 bus to get close to tennis center. But the bus did not exist at designated parking recommended by the event. We had to ask a bus driver who advised us to instead take E bus to get to our destination. Overall, this is complete non sense to make transportation so difficult, expensive and multi step process. The other alternative was to take an Uber! We were willing to park at Citi center and pay $40 but that was full also.
Then there is small pizza one topping (only cheese) for $20! Why are they nickel and dime people and even not allowing people to take sufficient water so that they can charge $4-5 for a bottle of water.
The ticket prices for qualifying sessions were more expensive than the final! Why? It used to be $15 and then changed to $25 last year. But it was about $130 this year for the cheapest. I decided to skip the whole thing until on the last days they opened something call grounds only because probably they found not many people can afford/willing to pay these outrageous prices. Very disappointing and will not attend the event in the future until they address the issues.
Single event tickets did not go on sale until a couple of weeks out. I purchased 2 for $150 each and just left the event without even going in. If you don’t have a parking pass do yourself a favor and Uber. There is no onsite parking. You must park on Wisconsin Avenue 2.5 miles away and wait in a line for over an hour to board a shuttle to take you to the tennis center and then wait in line again for an hour to enter into the match. This is no longer the real Citi Open or Legg Mason, I won’t go again.
The shuttle bus service does not start until 1PM while the matches start at 12PM. The tournament announced the August 5th schedule AFTER they say they have sold out the tickets. Only WTA SFs are scheduled in the afternoon session, and both of ATP SFs are in the evening. More over, the official website does not update in timely manner. Whole things are big mess.
Session 1 is a total after thought except the prices. The shuttle situation was stupid from lack of clarity to a web page not found to no management loading at end of day. People were literally pushing to get into a shuttle.
Over 100 degrees and vendors selling water from a dollar to 10.00. Volunteers cannot run an event. Take responsibility.
Fabulous day and accessible seats . Extremely helpful staff
Excellent day despite weather !