Anyone For Tennis?

[Sean Regan]

Because I've not been able to play golf due to "lockdown," I've been watching both the track cycling and tennis on the Eurosport TV channels this afternoon. Despite the Covid restictions, the cycling doesn't seem that different. Of course there are no spectators, but the centre of the track is as it usually is. Apart from there being no small hospitality area, it's full of the teams and their support mechanics etc. So looks no different. The coverage of the races seems the same as little of the spectator area ever gets shown. There's still the music and there is some noise, mainly from those in the middle of the track area. The only difference is there's not a full medal ceremony, the riders stand on the podium, the winners are announced, the national anthem played and photographs taken. It's a case of, "pick up your own medal and your bunch of flowers off the table on your way up to the podium." The tennis was quite different. It's from Linz in Austria, part of the minor WTA tour. No big names.I think it's a struggle to keep these events going, given that the prize money has been reduced by 70% because of Covid. Again an empty stadium but with no noise. It took me a moment to understand what was going on, I could see and hear the umpire calling out the scores and the line judges calling out the faults, but there were none. It was all being done with Hawkeye. I'm assuming there's someone in a booth with a microphone looking at monitors and calling out "fault" when the system picks it up. There's no usual six ball boys/girls either, just three adults who were managing just as well. So just six people in all, in the arena, apart from a dozen player support people in the stand. This may be an indicator of what will happen after Covid. The matches are running smoothly with Hawkye, no desputed calls. No "Chalk flew up!" "I want the referee!" dramas. No chance of any line judge nodding off, as has happened on occasions at big tournaments over the years. So no appeals, or waiting to see it on the big screen, with the spectators clapping as they watch the ball on the screen as it heads towards the line and the subsequent cheers or groans. As all these tournaments can use Hawkeye now, line judges are actually really superfluous and doing without dozens of them at tournaments could be a big saving that might be considered attractive. But it wouldn't be the same.

 

[Sean Regan]

Sometyhing else struck me as a bit odd about the tennis.

Usually, at the back end of the court against the back wall there are three chairs for the three line judges at that end. They rarely sit on them but they are always there.
For many years now in those tournaments that have a lot of advertising, there's a U shaped fixture up to nine inches high and about 3ft for each side that surrounds each of the chairs. This always has advertising on the three sides. They are rarely out of sight of the TV cameras. I guess the justification for their use, would be to stop the unwanted balls discard by players before a serve, from rolling under the chairs which might take the ball boys/girls longer to retrieve.
Of course today, there are no line judges, so no chairs, but the three sided advertising boards were there, guarding "nothing" just pushed up against the back wall.
I guess the contract for the advertising was paid for before the Covid situation, so they had to be provided.