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Earlier this month the new 62,500-square-foot, 6,500-ton retractable roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center home of the U.S. Open tennis championships went to work in front of a crowd of journalists and tennis royalty, culminating a three-year engineering project to give the world's largest tennis stadium a lid. The group waited just five minutes and 12 seconds for the translucent fabric (polytetrafluoroethylene, also known as PTFE) covering the stadium to part and reveal sunny blue skies over Queens, N.Y.

The $150 million roof is one of the new stars at the final and most exciting Grand Slam event on the tennis calendar, getting underway this week. Now, thanks to the new state-of-the-art retractable roof, no one will get rained out. (Last year's men's singles final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer was delayed for nearly three and a half hours because of rain.)

Every year the U.S. Open draws more than 700,000 tennis fans to Queens. For more than two weeks the U.S. Open grounds are abuzz with live music, great food and people from around the globe watching some of the most amazing tennis in the world. The atmosphere is well, electric.

The energy generated by fans, players and the world's media isn't the only thing juicing the 900-acre tennis center. The U.S. Open, like all facets of American life, runs on energy energy that illuminates courts, keeps crowds cool during the hot days of late August and early September and brings fans and players from around the world to New York.

Tennis Under the Lights

Part of what makes the Open's atmosphere so energizing (and some would argue, downright uproarious) are the night matches. On Aug. 27, 1975, the tournament staged its first night-time matches. The French Open experimented with night tennis in 1969, but the U.S. Open has best exemplified tennis under the lights for more than four decades.

Newly crowned Arthur Ashe Stadium certainly will amp up the Open's lighting. More than 360 LED spor...