Guest Post: Venturing Out for Tennis
A seasoned tennis traveler gives her take on returning to live tennis
After returning to tennis earlier this year, I wanted to hear from more fans about their experiences getting back into the stands. If there is one person that knows their way around live tennis it is A_Gallivant, co-host of the RealzTenisFanz Podcast.
With a busier tennis schedule than most players this summer, she attended Washington DC, US Open, and Laver Cup so read below to get her insight on returning to the sport we all love.
I go to tennis tournaments regularly. I have been going to about 3 per year since 2009. I even managed to get one under my belt before the entire season paused in Indian Wells in 2020.
I was fortunate enough to attend the 2020 Dubai ATP tournament as press and was already planning my return in 2021. Even then, there were murmurs about a virus making the rounds. When I boarded my return flight to LAX, my seatmates had on masks, but I thought nothing of it. Within a week, LA would go into lockdown.
It's now 18 months later and I have just returned from my first 3 live tennis events and am considering 2 more. That's probably a good assessment of how well I think things are going or my threshold for normal has shifted entirely. I suspect it's the latter. I have missed watching live tennis and I am prepared to exercise as much caution as I can. I no longer believe we are going back to a 'before time', so I am ready to adjust and begin to do the things I enjoyed doing and for me that's traveling.
I attended the Citi Open, US Open, and Laver Cup. With each new event, my anxiety level decreased, but then I will have moments of panic, where I run through a list of all the encounters I had that day and mentally reassess the risks I took. As Ana would say, "it's a process."
At the Citi Open, I avoided any indoor space. I kept my mask on outdoors except when I was fully surrounded by vaccinated friends. In hindsight, the Citi Open now seems pretty lax because they asked for no proof of vaccination and abandoned their 50% occupancy rate as soon as they announced Rafa Nadal was coming. At the time that decision seemed pretty reckless, but now I see it as just the calculus businesses are taking to try to survive an ongoing public health nightmare.
For me, the Citi Open was an opportunity to see Jannik Sinner and Coco Gauff up close and enjoy a healthy Kei Nishikori. Both teens were as quixotic as I have come to expect and the crowd was as charmed as I was by them. However, my favorite match was Lloyd Harris vs Rafa Nadal. The atmosphere was electric as it was clear many people were seeing Rafa up close for the first time. It's always a special moment catching someone you really like watching live. The aunties were in heaven as they all bleated out Vamos! in desperation and jubilation. As a non-Fedal fan, I was surprisingly very sad to see Rafa go out for the tournament. The pandemic has definitely made me a touch soft.
Looking back, it's amazing how quickly you adapt to new situations. I went from being reluctant to unmask outdoors in the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. in early August to sitting masked up amongst 17,000 + fans in Boston's TD Garden, a closed door venue, in late September. However, I was somewhat comforted by two things in Boston: the venue checked for a vaccination card and if you didn't have one, then you had to have proof of a negative test. Unlike the USO which took a cursory look at your vaccination card, the ushers actually looked at our cards and IDs to ensure we were the same people. In the TG Garden, most of the people adhered to the mask rule except for a few rowdy guys at the Saturday night evening session. They got to drinking and got very comfortable. I never really got there. Only the most committed kept their masks on at the US Open.
Laver Cup came on the tail end of such an exciting US Open 2nd week that I never once thought of canceling the trip. As is my habit, I go to the US Open starting on Labor Day. It's usually a fairly long day but by Tuesday the holiday crowd has disappeared and all the action is just on Ashe. I thought there would be even less people as I saw that the USTA waited until just a day before the start of the Open to announce that they were requiring proof of vaccines. When I arrived on my first day, I scrambled to find a copy of my card to show the ushers stationed at the entrance. It's only after I got in that I realized I had accidentally shown a picture of my sister's card. That was a bit unsettling. I realized then that this was all just security theater. Looking at whatever paper attendees flashed was meant to make us feel good but ultimately did little to hold us accountable. So, I resolved to stay masked up, stay away from strangers, and socialize with vaccinated friends on the grounds.
Thankfully the ladies were having a wonderful tournament. I immediately gravitated towards Leylah Fernandez's remarkable run and enjoyed seeing her upset Sabalenka, though I was cheering for the oldie. I also was moved by the show that Felix and Tiafoe put on for the Ashe crowd. I watched Krejcikova vs Muguruza and was left with the impression that Muguruza was simply outplayed. I wasn't convinced that Krejcikova was faking her injury as I learned when I read accounts of the match later. Muguruza's shots never stayed inside the lines. My one regret was leaving the Sakkari vs Andreescu match. I still remember watching Kei take down Milos Raonic in a 4th round match late into the night as he made that epic run to the final in 2014. I would have liked to leave the grounds after that ladies match. My only excuse is that my match watching tolerance had lessened through the pandemic. I saw the ladies battle back to even the match a set apiece and left.
None of the matches I saw live ever caught fire, but the buzz around the grounds about the ladies tournament and the potential for a historic win on the men's side made the USO worth it. I even managed to catch a bit of the junior girls' final with Robin Montgomery. Still, I have decided to go back to weekend viewing on Armstrong for 2022. This year, the night sessions on Ashe were not particularly thrilling and though the ladies final was a wonderful surprise, it left me a bit underwhelmed.
Luckily, I knew the Laver Cup would be more fun because the match-ups are usually top-notch and you see a different side of the players as teammates. As I said previously, I never thought of canceling but I knew folks who had canceled because they worried about the health risks and couldn't deal with Federer's absence. I was curious if the crowd would show up and be as invested as they had been at other Laver Cup events. Plus, live tennis is also about the tennis friends you catch up with on the road. I wanted to see my tennis watching buddies. I had missed them as much as I had missed live tennis.
Guess what? People showed up! I would say the arena was about 90 to 95% filled most of the time, particularly in the cheap seats. Folks committed to the World vs Europe concept but ultimately were just game for a good time. I thought Felix vs Berrettini was one of the best matches I saw this year. I was sad to see Felix lose it. I was very disappointed in Nick Kyrgios. To see him play so tamely in an arena that he has loved and said he was excited to play said all you needed to know about Team World; nothing really worked for them except Diego Schwartzman, who continues to be a crowd favorite.
Open questions that I hope someone else can help me understand:
What is John McEnroe's value beyond the symbolic?
Why was Jack Sock there and why didn't they exploit any rule to allow him to suit up for doubles?
Lloyd Harris had a fantastic summer, getting to the quarterfinals of the USO, why didn't he get a turn instead of Reilly Opelka or Denis Shapovalov?
LC Boston didn't deliver the same thrills as watching Federer play at home in Geneva with an adoring crowd. Yet, what could possibly do that?! I was entertained by the matches I saw throughout the weekend. Ultimately, that is all I could ask for at my favorite team event. Some fans found a new favorite player to follow as evidenced by the chatter I heard about Andrey Rublev, Matteo Berrettini, and Felix Auger Aliassime around the grounds. The crowd enjoyed their matches, their flair, and their good looks.
I am not a sports nut outside of tennis, but even I was bowled over by the history of the Garden as I looked at the pictures of Celtics and Bruins glory that filled the hallways. It was a sports mecca and I was kind of proud that tennis had put on a good show.
Yessssssss for through explanations and high quality snaps (that are your own)! Can’t wait to be out to tournaments again and be with all the awesome tennis fam! 🙌🏾🥰
You truly captured the live atmosphere at the Citi Open and Laver Cup. I was a tv watcher of the US Open but we could feel the excitement of two fresh faces on the ladies side.