Miami Marlins’ GM Kim Ng takes break from baseball to attend US Open, where her idols played – USA TODAY

Alex Coffey| Special for USA TODAY

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NEW YORK Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor made an appearance at the U.S. Open on Thursday afternoon, a few hours before his game against the Miami Marlins. It did not go unnoticed.

The U.S. Open tweeted about it from their official account. The ESPN broadcast shared a video of Lindor throwing a tennis ball back and forth with his new pal, Alexander Zverev, who recently advanced to the third round. Its safe to say that fans knew he was there.

Few people noticed Marlins general manager Kim Ng, who braved biblical flooding the night before to watch Sloane Stephens take on Coco Gauff from the Arthur Ashe Stadium presidents suite. Ng, who is close friends with a member of the USTAs board of directors, Kathleen Francis, was sitting next to Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of "Vogue", who inspired the movie "The Devil Wears Prada." A photo of Wintour began to circulate on Twitter. Ng is pictured right next to the fashion icon albeit, out of focus and people still didnt recognize her.

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Ng wasnt complaining. The GM isnt one to thrust herself into the spotlight (which has become a bit of an issue since she was hired by the Marlins last year, the first woman to become a general manager of a mens team in the history of major North American sports). She was perfectly content to blend into a crowd, particularly at an event that carries such personal significance for her.

Long before baseball, tennis was the first sport that Ng loved. Her parents played it, her grandparents played it, so she started playing it, when she was four, and continued throughout high school. The sport filled her with a sense of empowerment and in some ways, brought out the doggedness shes become known for as an executive but it also connected her to two role models that had a profound effect on a young woman looking to chart a path that was largely uncharted.

"I was a little bit young to follow Billie Jean King, but by the time I got to high school, I really started to understand what she had done for the sport and for women, in general," Ng said. "Martina (Navratilova) was much more my sweet spot, age-wise 10-years-old through college. Amazing athlete. The thing that always really grabbed me about Martina was that she took the sport to another level, for women. She redefined what many people thought of as a female athlete. She just raised the bar. Her physique, the way she trained.

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"It was also the idea that she was not afraid to be different. She was her own person, and she told it like it was and didnt take anything from anybody. I think that really helped me in terms of thinking about how I should be growing up. And things that I should be thinking about. And that it was okay to be different. I got a lot of that from my family, but I think externally, it was important for me to see somebody else living that credo."

On the day she accepted the job as Marlins GM, Ng listed Navratilova and King as mentors. Standing outside the visitors dugout at Citi Field on Thursday, she clarified that in reality, they meant much more.

"Idols,"she said. "Those two speaking out and being as vocal as they were, allowed a little kid like me to become aware of what I was capable of. ... It helped me fight those preconceived notions of what I could be, and what I should be, and really just going after what I want."

The examples that King and Navratilova set only drew Ng to the sport more. By the time shed graduated from the University of Chicago, she was seriously considering a career in tennis simply because that was where shed seen the most women in positions of power.

"When I was thinking of getting into sports… what you see is what you think is available to you," she said. "I was thinking about tennis, maybe working in sports marketing or operations. It was a sport that had more women in it."

Obviously, Ng went a different route one that is arguably more emblematic of the impact that King and Navratilova had in the tennis world but remained drawn to the sport. In her mind, she sees tennis as a vehicle for womens empowerment, and makes an effort to support it in person when she can, often by attending the Open. Shes made trips to Flushing Meadows while working in the Los Angeles Dodgers front office, the New York Yankees front office, and in the MLB Commissioners office, so, when the Mets-Marlins game was rained out Wednesday night, she couldnt pass up a chance to see two female athletes gutting it out, just a few feet from the court.

"Those two are off the charts,"she said of Gauff and Stephens. "Ive seen Venus (Williams) at the Open there as well. Thats who Coco reminds me of, is Venus her build, her aggressiveness, her poise.

"It was tremendous to see that type of athleticism up close. Just incredible talent. I figured the stars were aligned; I love tennis and I love baseball. It would have been a great day if we had been able to see both, but it was still a great day, because I got to spend most of it watching those two play."

Follow Alex Coffey on Twitter @byalexcoffey.

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Miami Marlins' GM Kim Ng takes break from baseball to attend US Open, where her idols played - USA TODAY