Monday, November 23, 2009 1:03 PM
Record crowd sees Murray win
Tom Tebbutt
The latest incarnation of the year-end ATP championships (formerly the Tennis Masters Cup) is as the ATP World Tour Finals. Following a four-year stint in Shanghai, they will now be held at the O2 Arena in London’s Dockland area for the next five years.
Sunday saw the opening action in front of a crowd of 17,467, a record for a tennis event in Britain. (Note: seating capacity at Wimbledon’s famed Centre Court is 14,954.) It witnessed an entertaining 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win by home favourite Andy Murray over Juan Martin del Potro.
After a day of watching what are sometimes abbreviated as the WTF, here are a few observations:
It is interesting to note that the crowd is almost in the dark, with the two-tone blue court being illuminated in such a way as to make everything look a little more theatrical.
Also nice to see is that unlike the recent women’s Tour Championships in Doha, Qatar, the players will have a day off between rounds as the schedule alternates between Group A – Roger Federer, Murray, del Potro and Fernando Verdasco – and Group B – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko and Robin Soderling.
The women’s event was marred by injury retirements, particularly in the case of Caroline Wozniacki who had to play two withering back-to-back matches in the round-robin phase before she finally broke down the next day and retired in the semi-finals.
The men’s alternating schedule is still not ideal because Nadal’s group will play Monday-Wednesday-Friday, meaning that, when its two top players cross over for the semi-finals on Saturday, they will be facing players from Group A who were able to rest on Friday.
(A clearly nervous Nadal lost his opener on Monday, 6-4, 6-4 to Robin Soderling, making poor unforced errors on set point in the first set and on the second match point in the second. On those match points, the moving video panel circling above the lower level of seats flashed “MATCH POINT MATCH POINT MATCH POINT MATCH POINT...” before the final point was played. It’s a dubious innovation that is potentially distracting for the players, and a definite sign that tennis times are a-changin.)
Inquiries to the ATP about who decided which group would play first, thus giving them the day off before the semi-finals, received a response that one of the factors in the decision was British television’s desire to be able to feature Murray in its first day of coverage on Sunday.
There also seems to be potential for some disappointed fans in the scheduling, which features only one singles match, as well as a doubles match, in each afternoon and evening session. With the inaugural WTF being highly promoted, is it worth risking alienating the paying customer if the singles is a real dud, or if one of the players is injured or ill and has to retire?
Two final thoughts: US Open champ Juan Martin del Potro’s sleeveless tops just don’t cut it at an indoor event. There is a different atmosphere of decorum about playing indoors and a proper T-shirt or collared shirt would be more appropriate.
And, regarding Andy Murray’s coaches, surely he does not need two – his main coach and fellow-Scot Miles Maclagan and consultant coach Alex Corretja, the retired Spanish player. If you look in Murray’s courtside box, there is Maclagan, Corretja as well as Murray’s physio and his fitness trainer. Corretja was originally hired to help Murray during the clay-court season but has gained a larger and larger presence. You have to feel for Maclagan – as any self-respecting coach would, surely he believes he can handle Murray on his own without having Corretja around all the time.
In a tough economic climate, Murray’s support coterie is a veritable growth enterprise in Britain.
AD-IN
Besides Daniel Nestor who, with partner Nenad Zimonjic, was upset by the Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in the opening round of round-robin play, there are two people with connections to Canada involved with the O2 event.
Ex-Montrealer Greg Rusedski, who recently got in hot water with Murray for suggesting that the Scot should play more aggressively, warmed up Federer before his first match (a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory) with Verdasco. Rusedski, like the Spaniard, is a left-hander.
And John Beddington, the former long-time tournament director of the Canadian Open event in Toronto, is the man who brokered the deal that brought Barclays on board as title sponsor for the ATP World Tour Finals.
