Aug. 29, 2022, 6:20 p.m. ET
“What’s up? Come in! Welcome!” Elaine Vario, a U.S. Open usher with fuchsia hair, greeted people as they entered Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday for a first-round match between Daniil Medvedev and Stefan Kozlov.
Vario, 62, checked people’s tickets and asked cheerily in her Long Island accent where they were from. The section she was working already had people in it from England, Australia, California, New Jersey and Brooklyn. She gave people high-fives and introduced tennis fans to one another.
“A lot of it is diplomacy,” she said of her job. She said some people tried to sneak into sections with better views. But overall, she has had a great experience with fans. She said there were many die-hard ones, including celebrities, whom she would see every year. Some would even send her Christmas gifts.
Vario has been working as an usher at the U.S. Open since 1997. She simply smiled when asked if she was here in 1999 when Serena Williams won her first major singles title, on Ashe.
“The place gets a certain magic when a hometown person is winning that I can’t explain,” Vario said of that night. “They did it for Andre Agassi, too. The whole place lights up.”
She added: “And when people go, ‘Oh, it’s so loud,’ I say, ‘Welcome to New York.’ It’s New York, and we have an energy that’s really hard to contain.”
A lot of people came that night in 1999 just to see Serena Williams play, Vario said. “She really built up the New York audience,” she said.
Williams’s farewell match Monday night would be “tough but exciting,” Vario said. “She’s already warned us that this will be it, so everyone will be rooting for her.”
“She’s still the hometown girl,” she added. “Whether she wins or loses, she’s going to get a standing ovation beyond anything you or I could imagine because she is well loved.”
She said Serena has done a lot for the sport, similar to Billie Jean King. “She’s done a lot to make little girls think they could accomplish stuff, and that’s a strong statement in our society. Period.”
Vario, who is from Mineola, N.Y., met her partner, Jeff Hyman, an Open usher who was known among friends as “the gentle giant” because he was 6 feet 6 inches, at the tournament during a rain delay in 1997, before the roof was installed.
“I fell asleep on the steps and I woke up with a big bear arm over me,” she said. They began dating 15 years ago. Vario said they planned to be married in December. But Hyman had colon cancer, she said, and died Thursday at age 62.
As people trickled into the stadium, it would be hard for them to know that the gregarious woman directing them to their seats had just lost her soul mate, that she no longer had her best ally at the tournament. He would normally stand in a nearby section, and she would tip her white hat to him during matches. The gesture meant “I love you.”
She was still grieving Monday, but she said he would want her to be there working because, realistically, living in New York wasn’t getting any cheaper and bills needed to be paid. But also because of how special the usher experience is.
“You make friends from all around the world,” she said. “I’ve watched people grow up, where they’re driving now, and I remember when their parents were carrying them in, and they’ll come in and give me big kisses.”
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