by Guest » 01 May 2024, 23:49
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I just got back from spending the weekend at the Madrid Open. Saw a whole bunch of players up close and personal on the practice courts and in the grounds, it’s a pretty cool atmosphere. However, it was a real bummer to see how small the attendance of WTA games was vs ATP and how the tournament is geared up to ensure the ATP matches are at the better times. We watched both the Rybakina and Sabalenka back to back matches on Friday and the main stadium was basically empty because they were a morning matches. It kind of blew my mind because for me they’re unmissable superstars!
Nice you had a great weekend at the tournament
I‘m not surprised to see low attendance at the women‘s matches. It fits the overall theme of the tournament with last year‘s debacle and they are not really doing much to promote the women (same as the WTA basically).
Anyways, do you have some behind the scenes stories you want to share?
who is friendly to the fans, who not so much?
I don’t have any interesting behind the scenes stories really! Again, not to keep complaining, but because of how it’s arranged, unless you get to the tournament super early you don’t see so many of the “big” female players around and about the grounds practicing or warming up because the majority of women’s singles matches are in the morning.
But, we saw quite a bit of Haddad Maia around and about and she seemed nice to fans. Coco was also around but playing doubles. Vondrousova always has a smile on her face. Ostapenko is just as comedic in the flesh. But yeah, hard to say whether they’re nice to fans as no one was displaying fan-like behaviour towards them really!
Men’s-wise, lots of love and fan interaction there and all the players we saw seemed nice to fans. Ben Shelton, Alcaraz, Auger-Aliassim all spent a lot of time with fans to and from the ground courts. Sinner was also sweet but in a rush so didn’t stick around too long.
Replying to myself - one thing is did find interesting watching the Sabalenka- Linette match was the very organised group of Polish fans that appeared just for that one match. There seemed to be a ring leader dude who kind of conducts the rest of them with chants and hand gestures and he got quite pissed off if someone in the group chanted too long or didn’t follow his instructions! And then they all left for the next match which was Alcaraz, which I thought was an odd thing to do if you’d paid for day tickets for the main stadium! It made me think that maybe they’re professional chanters that are paid to go to the polish matches!
A group is cheering for some player so they're paid?
Lol, or maybe, just maybe those were like your usual fanclubs or gatherings of people we can see in many other sports where they meet together before matches if they support specific teams or athletes. You noticed they were not there anymore cause they caught attention, like most groups similar to those do. And people leaving or entering different matches is also visible even on TV, and it's not just fanclubs who do that, because the difference in attendance is sometimes pretty big. Although it can be seen as weird, I don't think it's that rare. But since the topic of empty stadiums has been talked about a lot in regards of women's tennis lately, the only 'unusual' thing there would be that this time some chose to stay for women's and then left. Must've been their preference, I guess.
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I just got back from spending the weekend at the Madrid Open. Saw a whole bunch of players up close and personal on the practice courts and in the grounds, it’s a pretty cool atmosphere. However, it was a real bummer to see how small the attendance of WTA games was vs ATP and how the tournament is geared up to ensure the ATP matches are at the better times. We watched both the Rybakina and Sabalenka back to back matches on Friday and the main stadium was basically empty because they were a morning matches. It kind of blew my mind because for me they’re unmissable superstars!
[/quote]
Nice you had a great weekend at the tournament :)
I‘m not surprised to see low attendance at the women‘s matches. It fits the overall theme of the tournament with last year‘s debacle and they are not really doing much to promote the women (same as the WTA basically).
Anyways, do you have some behind the scenes stories you want to share? :D who is friendly to the fans, who not so much?
[/quote]
I don’t have any interesting behind the scenes stories really! Again, not to keep complaining, but because of how it’s arranged, unless you get to the tournament super early you don’t see so many of the “big” female players around and about the grounds practicing or warming up because the majority of women’s singles matches are in the morning.
But, we saw quite a bit of Haddad Maia around and about and she seemed nice to fans. Coco was also around but playing doubles. Vondrousova always has a smile on her face. Ostapenko is just as comedic in the flesh. But yeah, hard to say whether they’re nice to fans as no one was displaying fan-like behaviour towards them really!
Men’s-wise, lots of love and fan interaction there and all the players we saw seemed nice to fans. Ben Shelton, Alcaraz, Auger-Aliassim all spent a lot of time with fans to and from the ground courts. Sinner was also sweet but in a rush so didn’t stick around too long.
[/quote]
Replying to myself - one thing is did find interesting watching the Sabalenka- Linette match was the very organised group of Polish fans that appeared just for that one match. There seemed to be a ring leader dude who kind of conducts the rest of them with chants and hand gestures and he got quite pissed off if someone in the group chanted too long or didn’t follow his instructions! And then they all left for the next match which was Alcaraz, which I thought was an odd thing to do if you’d paid for day tickets for the main stadium! It made me think that maybe they’re professional chanters that are paid to go to the polish matches!
[/quote]
A group is cheering for some player so they're paid? :nervous: Lol, or maybe, just maybe those were like your usual fanclubs or gatherings of people we can see in many other sports where they meet together before matches if they support specific teams or athletes. You noticed they were not there anymore cause they caught attention, like most groups similar to those do. And people leaving or entering different matches is also visible even on TV, and it's not just fanclubs who do that, because the difference in attendance is sometimes pretty big. Although it can be seen as weird, I don't think it's that rare. But since the topic of empty stadiums has been talked about a lot in regards of women's tennis lately, the only 'unusual' thing there would be that this time some chose to stay for women's and then left. Must've been their preference, I guess.