The centerpiece of a $254 million expansion of the National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., Arthur Ashe Stadium hosted its first U.S. Open in 1997.

The U.S. Tennis Association announced the stadium's name at a February 1997 press conference attended by Ashe's widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe. "Arthur Ashe was an outstanding tennis player," USTA president Harry Marmion said, "but we are naming our new stadium in his honor because Arthur Ashe was the finest human being the sport of tennis has ever known."

With 23,000 seats, the stadium towers over neighboring Louis Armstrong Stadium, the setting for the finals from 1978-96. Previously, the Open was played at the West Side Tennis Club in nearby Forest Hills, N.Y.