Michael Cheung’s First US Open
Posted on May 11, 2026 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
On Friday, April 17, we spent most of the day at the Franklin US Open tournament until it was time to pick our friend Michael Cheung up from the airport. Brian took the opportunity to get some stretching done at the Healix booth.
After picking up Michael from the airport and a quick check in (he stayed at the same hotel that we were staying at), the three of us went for early supper at LowBrow. We first discovered this pizza place in 2022, and returned in 2023 with mom and dad. This is our third visit here. We tried another pizza place earlier in the week but LowBrow is definitely our favorite.
They added this giant chair out front for photo ops which wasn’t there three years ago. Naturally, I had to get a pic of Michael in it.
Here are some pictures of our food.
Michael decided to order the wings, on top of getting pizza. They were fantastic but we had entirely too much food.
Michael got the Cortez the Killer, while Brian and I split the Meatfest. The wings made us full, though. At the end of the evening, we still had a whole pizza to take home between the two different pizzas.
BTW, I forgot to mention that, because Michael is a Globalist with Hyatt Rewards, they practically rolled out the red carpet for him. When we first checked in earlier in the week, this lady in front of us was asking for an upgrade and they flat out told her no. When Michael checked in, he got upgraded to a suite (despite having booked the same room as Brian and I using points) without even asking. Follow this link for a tour of his fancy room if you want to see it. They also gave him a couple bottles of water, coupons to the restaurant, and all sorts of free goodies. However, the best perk of all and the one that matters most is the free parking. Brian and I had to pay $29 per day for self-parking and Globalists like Michael get it for free. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us transfer the car over to Michael for the last couple of days so we had to pay $29 for every single day of our stay (including our departure day, which was kind of a rip off but Brian and I just accepted our fate without complaint).
The next day, we went to the tournament early so Michael could check out vendor village before we played.
We also got to take in some games at the Zing Zang Championship Court. PRO TIP: It’s free to get in to Zing Zang in the mornings, if you want to save some money. Just get there early and stay there.
We didn’t medal but I got a pic of Michael with the podium backdrop, which had to be rebranded this year because of the change in title sponsor.
Michael and I played in our matching Lunar shirts. Thank you to Matt Nola for mine. He gave it to me when I bought my Lunar Laban paddle.
Click here for highlights from our last day at the Franklin US Open. Hands down my favorite part of our last day was getting to be part of the iconic US Open flag ceremony. We had to wait in line a long time before the flag ceremony but it was worth it. Would totally do it again next year.
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