At U.S. Open, a match made in (almost) heaven

The heat and humidity were oppressive and inescapable last week at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. But one person just might have the coolest job at the Grand Slam tennis event - and in more ways than one.

Frank Ayala, 35, is the man who climbs 50 feet into the air outside Louis Armstrong Stadium to post the results of the day's matches.

Perched atop a ladder, he has been fortunate to catch gentle breezes and a break from unrelenting heat.

"It's fun," said Ayala, who is from Los Angeles and hangs billboards for a living. "But when the sun reflects off the board, that's when it really gets hot."

For thousands who stop and stare at the Open's main nonelectronic scoreboard, Ayala's work is the quickest way to get a history of this year's tournament so far. Results include the latest scores from matches that ended while spectators were watching another.

"People are taking pictures," Ayala said. "It is interesting to see all the names. At the beginning, there was nothing."

It's Ayala's first U.S. Open. His employer, Signology of California, won the bid to update the United States Tennis Center's scoreboard. It's a two-man team, with Burford Smith, 46, of Atlanta, working the laptop computer and a printer that spits out the latest scores on paper-thin, adhesive vinyl.

The two men inhabit a small space underneath the stadium bleachers that is behind the scoreboard. Their work space consists of two pieces of plywood as flooring, two tables and chairs, and hand-held floodlights. Smith sits next to a large air-conditioning unit and beneath a drain pipe with peeling paint.

It is Smith's sixth U.S. Open, and despite the hot weather it hasn't been too bad compared with past years, which have featured water leaks and dust storms, he said.

"We used to have two raccoons," Smith said. "You couldn't walk off and leave your lunch."

For Ayala, the time-consuming part of his job is out of sight for most spectators. The time it takes to trim and carve the letters from the vinyl is twice as long as the time it takes to climb one of the scoreboard's three ladders. A harness keeps him tethered to his ladders.

He estimates that he made 50 trips to post scores each day during the first few days of the tournament, when the most matches were played. The days can be long, with postings of scores in the late matches often not coming before midnight.

For many, the matches don't seem final until the results are posted on the big board, Ayala said.

"People are watching," he said.