ALIX RAMSAY TALKS TENNIS • SHE WRAPS THE 02 EVENT AS WELL AS SOME GREAT INSIGHT FROM 2018

Written by: Staff on 23rd November 2018

ALIX RAMSAY TALKS TENNIS • SHE WRAPS THE 02 EVENT AS WELL AS SOME GREAT INSIGHT FROM 2018

epa07175934 Germany's Alexander Zverev celebrates with his trophy surrounded by ball kids after beating Serbia's Novak Djokovic in their final match at the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London, Britain, 18 November 2018. EPA-EFE/WILL OLIVER |

Germany’s Alexander Zverev celebrates with his trophy surrounded by ball kids after beating Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in their final match at the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London, Britain, 18 November 2018. EPA-EFE/WILL OLIVER

There is not a sign of the Nitto ATP Finals left at the O2 Arena. The court is gone, the banners have been taken down and the players are all many miles away, sitting on sun-kissed beaches and enjoying a bit of down time before the training starts in earnest for the new season. Meanwhile Florence + The Machine have taken their place in the cavernous venue (it’s a sell-out, don’t even try to get a ticket) and it is as if the tennis had never happened.

There must be a few at the ATP who wonder what it is that Flo and the band has got that they are lacking. Over the course of the eight days of the finals, there were more than a few empty seats on show. No Nadal and no Murray did not help matters and combined with a dominant Djokovic (until the final), a discombobulated Federer (he really was pretty ordinary in the first match) and a lack of any competitive edge in any of the matches until the knock-out stage, the finals proved a harder sell to the public than usual.

The event will stay in London until 2020 but you do wonder how the next couple of years will pan out. The Mighty Fed may come from the land of clocks and watch makers but not even he can hold back time forever. He is 37 and he has no clue how much longer he can keep playing. He may still be around in two years (don’t bet against it) but he may not. And if he is not, flogging tickets at the O2 is not going to be easy.

Then there is Rafa: this year, he has pulled out of two hard court tournaments (the Australian and U.S. Opens) due to injury and simply not made the starting line in six others. A hip problem stopped him in his tracks in Melbourne and ended any hope of competing in Indian Wells and Miami, a knee problem ended his U.S. Open and then an abdominal muscle injury prevented him from coming back in November. Just for good measure, he was booked in for ankle surgery by the time he had pulled out of the ATP Finals. It has been a painful year.

The two men who get bums on seats are – you guessed it – Federer and Nadal. One is getting older and the other has said throughout his career that hard courts are the worst surface for him to play on. Raf has qualified for 14 end-of-year finals but has only been fit enough to play in eight of them. And he has only played one match there since 2014. He is not what you might call a banker for the ticket sellers.

Still, that is for the businessmen to worry about. Of more interest is what the showcase event told us about the state of the tennis world.

The clearest message was that most everyone was absolutely knackered by the time they got to London. Any disappointment in losing in the round robin phase was soon tempered by the thought of an extra couple of days of vacation time on that beach.

That thought did cast a shadow over the all singing and dancing new Davis Cup finals format for next year: instead of 10 weary souls ending their season on November 25 after a simple two team knockout final, next year we will have 18 teams playing round robin, quarters, semis and then finals. That makes 90 exhausted blokes hanging on by their fingertips until they can get some rest. So that will be 90 knackerees trying to rouse themselves for the Australian Open in 2020 via – wait for it – another international team competition, the new ATP Cup at the start of January. The ATP Cup is not, in itself, a bad idea. The timing, though, is pants.

Anyway, for those who are still able to stand unaided next November, we did learn a valuable lesson this past week: do not mess with the locals at the O2. The host country did not need a Brit with a bat to stir things up in Greenwich; instead, they had the mighty Annabel Croft armed only with a microphone.

Switzerland’s Roger Federer in action against Germany’s Alexander Zverev during their semi final match of the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament in London, Britain, 17 November 2018. EPA-EFE/WILL OLIVER

Interviewing Alexander Zverev after the semi-finals, she rounded on the crowd and put them firmly in their place. You may recall that Zverev stopped play, midpoint, in the second set tiebreak against Fed. A ball boy dropped the ball and chased after it as it rolled away and so caused a distraction. The point was replayed, Zverev went on to win the tiebreak and the match and the crowd booed. They booed a lot. As Sascha tried to explain afterwards – while apologising profusely – that it was just the rule, he didn’t mean to offend, they booed even more. Sascha, all 6ft 6inches of him, looked a little lost.

“Well I’m not sure why you’re all booing because he’s telling the truth,” Annabel snapped at the rabble. “The ball boy did move across the court and it disrupted play and those are the rules so I think you have to be a little bit more respectful.”

And respectful they were from then on. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? You don’t want to mess with Annabel, not when she knows she’s in the right.

However, this brings up a new topic of discussion: communication. The rules of tennis are many and, at times, complex. Most of the punters watching have a vague grasp of how things work but there are situations that need a little clarification and it would not hurt if the umpires – or someone in authority – explained the whys and wherefores to the crowd. It might stop a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness.

Remember poor Naomi Osaka in New York? What happened between Serena and the umpire was absolutely nothing to do with her and yet when the moment came that she fulfilled her childhood dream of beating Serena to win a grand slam title, she was roundly booed by 23,000 ill-informed New Yorkers. They were simply trying to support their player but they did not know that Serena was completely in the wrong – she had committed three transgressions earning, in turn, a warning, a point penalty and a game penalty. Them’s the rules. It cost Serena the final but the lack of explanation and communication cost Naomi the greatest moment of her career.

And finally, we have learned that old Stone Face – Ivan Lendl – never changes. He steered his new charge to the title but there was never a hint that he was happy about it. To be fair, Djoko looked spent at the end of a long and emotional year. When Sascha started to attack, the energy, intensity and belief seemed to ebb away from him. Sacha played well but Djoko had nothing left.

The night before, our intrepid Annabel had bumped into Lendl after the semi-final. Asking thoughtfully after Sascha – he had looked rather upset by all that booing – Lendl growled that he thought his protégé should never have apologised. Will he be all right, Annabel asked. Lendl replied, and not in a warm and fuzzy way: “He will be when I’m finished with him.”

And a very merry Christmas to you, too, Mr Lendl.

Topics: 02 Arena, 10sballs, Atp, London, Men's tennis, Nitto ATP Finals, Sports, Tennis, Tennis10sBalls