Tennis: desperate to defiance
After holding back for a good period of time, taking all the precautions against known risks and players accepting irksome quarantine and testing to be routines, sports resumed its competition events in Europe. The threatening virus is still at the door steps of these sports venues. Tennis events were worked out in Florida, Turkey, Melbourne, Abu Dhabi and in Sri Lanka and others. It is defiance.
Right now medical world has data after one calendar year of pandemic, it has showed some leeway to conduct sporting events in the midst of ever existing danger. The main event of February, the Australian Open is on now. Director Mark Tiley took a defiant stand and simply refused to hold back or postpone the event. In all probability it will be so with Tokyo Olympics.
ATP Cup
Playing these high end events demand performance. The players were irritated by their own playing form arising from lack of preparation and virus prevention precautions they have to follow. What’s demanded as precautions, were well above the comfort zone of tennis players. Several players did not go to Australia. Many top 100 abstained.
Among the players present in Australia, the irritation and frustration showed up in tight situations and good few racquets were smashed by players on the court; it includes that of Djokovic and Zverev. With court side spectator limitation many countries depended on the TV coverage.
Qualification through ATP ranking
ATP went Australia, for warm up events and to kick-start the year-long dormant tennis calendar with the inter-nation championships ATP Cup, a substitute for ITF Davis Cup. ATP Cup staged its second edition in the first week of February in Melbourne. The pre-qualification for the events is based on the number of players a nation has in the top 100 of the ATP ranking. This made tennis to be attractive. The round robin and the follow up of knock out was a lively format.
Russia with two of its star players Medvedev and Rublev had little problem taking home this year’s title along with a tidy slice of the seven and half million-dollar prize money. The Italians came up with recognisable performance. With Berettini and Fognini in their team, they did extremely well and reached the final. Germany eliminated last year’s winner, the Serbian team with Djokovic to reach the semifinals. Argentina was also in the semi-finals. For the global audience ATP Cup format is more attractive and crisp than that of Davis Cup.
WTA starts
in Abu Dhabi
Arabian peninsulas Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar have established themselves as winter sporting venues. Their climate is very hot in summer. These newly emerging Arabian states have space and transit trade business revenue to create state of the art venues ideal for TV broadcast, which is their mainstay of income from sporting events. They also fill the European winter months and that is much appreciated by the professionals.
WTA also faced the issue of moving the players around. This issue will remain until good vaccines appear and our social behaviour changes. The restricted Abu Dhabi event went well. They could not get the best field of players and the event was won by Aryana Sablenka.
Professional dilemma
Professional players seek prominence, perform for income and to please audiences. That makes winning the name of the game. In the global audience, player relationship is a swing between attraction, admiration, hate, unnoticed or surprised. Any new name is an attraction and if you last long they become stale and often disliked. Players in the midst of all these must make a living for a life time. What and who makes the money and who gets to spend it is not circulated easily at all levels it is not revealed.
At best, number of years a player enjoys high income is from 5 to 15. Physically players break down too often and it depresses the players. Research shows injuries are often from harmful long hours of training than match play. Player popularity vanishes when the players stop playing. A 20-year-old tennis fan of today will not know who Bjorn Borg or the more recent Pete Sampras is. In sports, out of sight is out of mind.
Australian Open 2021
The past week was the first week of the two weeks long Australian Open event. In tennis, TV coverage can never match the attraction, appeal and the aura of attending the event. Spectator entry to the Australian Open is highly restricted. It cannot be otherwise in the present situation.
The first few days of the Australian Open did produce good tennis. TV coverage and its ‘highlights’ programme gave many good, concise and interesting versions. Underperformance was evident. Often players knew what to do but unprepared to perform. Frustration did show. The number of participants in the draw was the same. That is a full field of 132 players in the singles draw.
Appealing arenas
Match courts were an appealing sight with electronic side screen turning into TV screen to show the replay and line calls. Players wise, up to the third day of the event, there were upsets. It was refreshing to see top players perform again. Asian players will have to develop tactically. Their approach of stroke making as the eternity of the game has kept their tennis ineffective in competition. This is our Asian regional issue.
—George Paldano, Former Intl. player; Accredited Coach of German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka, coached ATP, WTA and ITF top 200 ranked players, Davis-Cup, Federation-Cup coach. ———- geodano2015@gmail.com