O2 – the tennis circus..

I finally made it to the O2 ATP tennis event last week.  A shoot-out between the top 8 men.  It seemed so promising.

I managed to get my act together a couple of months ago and booked the afternoon session in the vague hope of finally seeing Federer live.  That didn’t happen.  The session was for one doubles and a singles between Warwinka and Berdych.  It’s such a money-making scheme this afternoon and evening session business.  At grand slams (apart from the US, naturally), you buy your ticket and see the matches all day.

It cost £55 for the ticket, the cheapest available, so we were rather in the Gods.  Actually it was positively vertiginous.  I kept thinking I might fall out of my seat it was so high and steep.  I would have seen more on the t.v. but I suppose you can’t beat seeing these events live.

The first irritation was being frisked on the way in and being told we couldn’t take in  any food or drink.  I fumed as I dumped my unopened drinks and delicious biscuits in the nearby bin.  They could at least have given them to charity.  What made me fume even more was discovering that we were allowed to drink and eat inside the stadium but only if we bought the highly overpriced rubbish sold there.

What happened next appalled me.  The court was bright blue – lights flashed and some ghastly music thumped away.  Then we were treated to deafening ads on the big screen.  I had come to watch some high-quality tennis and found a circus.  We were asked to clap the ballboys and girls who ran round the court to more thumping music before they took their designated positions.  And then we were ordered to clap the umpire and even the linesmen as they filed in.  All before the players came on.  When they finally arrived, the thumping music increased in volume and the lights flashed off and on round the lines of the court while they emerged through some dry-ice style cloud.  Lucky I’m not epileptic.  But I think I am now half-deaf.

When the players sat down at change of ends, more deafening music struck up.  Boom, boom, boom. When a player served an ace, ‘Ace, Ace, Ace’ flashed up round the court.  Same for set/break and match points. It must be bad enough being break point down without it being flashed up all round you.  But the worst was when a player challenged a call.  Booming sound of a heartbeat in time to a flashing, pulsating heartbeat monitor sign rigged up all round the court while we waited for hawkeye to tell us the result. Oooh, the suspense.  Oh, and then at one change of ends flashing writing (yes, you’ve guessed it, to the sound of thump thump thump) saying ‘look at the screen’ while the low lying camera panned round the audience.  Oh look there’s me on the big screen – shrieks of delight.

And then Warwinka slaughtered Berdych in about an hour.  Hardly got my money’s worth.  Both players are charming and quiet and self-effacing.  It must have horrified them also.  No wonder the match was so substandard.

This sort of commercialisation is what happens in the States – actually, this is even worse than the US Open in terms of its vulgarity and complete lack of respect for the players and the game as a whole.

The discreet and understated tournament at Wimbledon feels like a different planet.  Give me ‘quiet please ladies and gentlemen’ any day.  Dan Maskell must be turning in his grave.