The US Open Series is the six-week summer tennis season linking 10 ATP World Tour and WTA Tour tournaments together. The Series leads to the US Open. It is often referred to as the U.S. or North American hard court season. From 2012 until 2019 the series will be sponsored by Emirates Airline.

It was organized in 2004 as a way to focus more attention on American tennis tournaments by getting more of them on domestic television. Until 2004, most summer North American tournaments were not on television, the exceptions being the highly televised ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati.

The eight non-Masters tournaments now enjoy about 50 hours of television combined—about two hours on each day of their final weekends, chiefly on ESPN2, which is where ESPN shows its tennis programming. CBS and Tennis Channel also cover portions of The Series.

Players earn points according to their results in the events; more points are awarded at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and WTA Premier 5 events. The three male and three female players with the highest point totals each earn a bonus at the US Open. The amount depends on their US Open Series placement and US Open result. If both are won then the bonus is $1 million as of 2010. Lleyton Hewitt and Lindsay Davenport were the top point-getters in 2004, Andy Roddick and Kim Clijsters won in 2005, and Andy Roddick and Ana Ivanović won in 2006. Defending US Open champions Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova won in 2007.

The term U.S. Open or US Open is applied to "open" United States-hosted championships in a particular sport (or non-sport organized competitive gaming activity), in which anyone, amateur or professional, American or non-American, and generally, male or female, may compete.

The term most commonly refers to:

Other uses include (in alphabetical order by sport/game):

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera (Catalan: [rəˈfɛɫ nəˈðaɫ pəˈɾeɾə]; Spanish: [rafaˈel naˈðal paˈɾeɾa]) (born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player and a former World No. 1. As of 28 May 2012 (2012 -05-28)^[update], he is ranked No. 2 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time; his success on clay has earned him the nickname "The King of Clay", and has prompted many experts to regard him as the greatest clay court player of all time.

Nadal has won ten Grand Slam singles titles, including a record six French Open titles (tied with Bjorn Borg), the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, a record 21 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments, and also was part of the Spain Davis Cup team that won the finals in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2011. He completed the Career Grand Slam by winning the 2010 US Open, being the seventh player in history, and the youngest in the open era, to achieve it. He is the second male player to complete the Career Golden Slam (winner of the four grand slams and the Olympic Gold medal) after only Andre Agassi.

Roger Federer (German pronunciation: [ˈfeːdəʁɐ]) (born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player who held the ATP No. 1 position for a record 237 consecutive weeks from 2 February 2004 to 18 August 2008. Federer has occupied the #1 ranking for 285 overall weeks, one week short of the record 286 weeks held by Pete Sampras. As of 28 May 2012, he is ranked World No. 3. Federer has won a men's record 16 Grand Slam singles titles. He is one of seven male players to capture the career Grand Slam and one of three (with Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal) to do so on three different surfaces (clay, grass, and hard courts). He is the only male player in tennis history to have reached the title match of each Grand Slam tournament at least five times and also the final at each of the nine ATP Masters 1000 Tournaments. Many sports analysts, tennis critics, and former and current players consider Federer to be the greatest tennis player of all time.

Federer has appeared in an unprecedented 23 career Grand Slam tournament finals, including a men's record ten in a row, and appeared in 18 of 19 finals from the 2005 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open, the lone exception being the 2008 Australian Open. He holds the record of reaching the semifinals or better of 23 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments over five and a half years, from the 2004 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open. At the 2012 Australian Open, he reached a record 31st consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. During the course of his run at the 2012 French Open in Roland Garros, Federer eclipsed Jimmy Connors long standing record of 233 match wins in Grand Slam tournaments when he defeated Adrian Ungur in a second round match.

Andrew "Andy" Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a Scottish professional tennis player, ranked No. 4 in the world, and was ranked No. 2 from 17 to 31 August 2009. Murray achieved a top-10 ranking by the Association of Tennis Professionals for the first time on 16 April 2007. He has been runner-up in three Grand Slam finals: the 2008 US Open, the 2010 Australian Open and the 2011 Australian Open, losing the first two to Roger Federer and the third to Novak Djokovic. In 2011, Murray became only the seventh player in the Open Era to reach the semi-finals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in one year.

Andy Murray was born to Will and Judy in Glasgow, Scotland. His maternal grandfather, Roy Erskine, was a professional footballer who played reserve team matches for Hibernian and in the Scottish Football League for Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath. Murray's brother, Jamie, is also a professional tennis player, playing on the doubles circuit. Following the separation of his parents when he was nine years old, Andy and Jamie lived with their father. Murray later attended Dunblane High School. Murray is in a five-year relationship with Kim Sears, who is regularly seen attending his matches. The relationship ended briefly in 2009 before they reconciled a short time later in 2010.