Week 45 - ATP World Tour Finals - London (indoor hard)

RJA · Hall of fame

RE: Week 45 - ATP World Tour Finals - London (indoor hard)

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Plus, at something like the O2, there are a lot of non-Brits there. Roger in particular seems to have a lot of fans that follow him all over the world, and no doubt there are a lot more that will come to a tournament so near (relatively) to their home.

indiana · Tennis legend

Hmm, I suspect a lot of last night's crowd was ignorant and that can be taken both literally and colloquially.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 13th of November 2012 12:13:33 AM

Armchair · County player

Agree with much said above, lots of non-Brits and casual sports fans because you can mostly buy tickets on the day and it's a much
more 'accessible' way of watching tennis.

There are no rain delays, the doubles matches start at a fixed time and the singles start times only vary by half an hour or so at most.
Because of the round robin format you're guaranteed to see two out of eight players you've heard of, and you only have to pay attention for three sets.

All of these things may be good at encouraging newcomers to watch live tennis but they also mean you get idiots who call out during the ball toss and applaud
errors.

I think the O2 is on the face of it an amazing indoor venue, but I find it a lacking in atmosphere and the whole structure of the tournament is designed to sell
the 17,000 seats at each session.

Plus which , as anyone who's had to settle for one of the seats right at the top of the arena, you need a good head for heights !

korriban · Challenger level

This pro-Fed anti-Murray topic is an odd won. Even I found myself strangely torn.

I was lucky enough to be there in the crowd on Saturday for Federers last group match, though not yesterday, and there's no doubt there is a sense of awe and privilege about watching Federer as he comes to the latter part of his career (see him while you can, gasp at the stats, coo at the ballet-like movement, etc) -which means he is very hard not to root for, for all neutrals. Del Potro was amazing, but only towards the end did the crowd warm to him somewhat. Plus there WERE a huge number of people with Swiss flags - most around me with those flags were NOT Swiss, including the bonkers French woman in front of us, who started crying when he lost that match, and a British family to my left.

Obviously sad that Murray got a few boos yesterday, but I suspect that many of the Brits probably were simply rooting for the underdog (for most pundits Fed WAS the underdog, however strange that sounds), which is a very British trait. It was also clear that Murray did NOT respond at all to Federer's up in tempo from 2-4 down, like he often does, and perhaps they gave up on him, and instead decided to applaud Fed's brilliance rather than wasting energy on Murray to come back.

Plus if an opponent changed his racquet just as someone was ready for play at a strategic moment, we'd probably say it wasn't "cricket" - that's what Murray did: perfectly legal......BUT is it British (and is clutching injuries when you lose a point British - poor old Niemenen and Gasquet at Wimby)?! My theory is that some of the British crowd were collectively raising their eyebrows at some of this type of thing (through the medium of a few whistles), rather than some preposterous anti-Scottish baloney.

Watching the semi on the small screen, the wonderful way Federer started to play from the middle of the first set, and because Murray didn't respond much, I changed my allegience to Federer out of pure appreciation of the tennis. Guilt free too. Still love Murray's tennis and hope he wins all 4 Grand Slams next year.

KK · Club Coach

Well I will be going tonight, disappointed Murray won't be there and supporting Djokovic. I took against Federer when I went to a semi-final in Miami in 2009. Probably the first time he lost to Djokovic and he behaved apallingly, smashing his racquet etc. It made me think that it's easy to be a good sport when you usually win.

I agree with what was said above. The crowd at the O2 will be pretty international and Federer is the sort of glamerous smooth player they would support.

Jan · Hall of fame

I don't have a problem with people supporting any player they choose. The problem comes when they start to boo and disrespect the opponent.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Question is if it was Tim v Roger who would the majority of the crowd support, I think I know the answer to that question.

Armchair · County player

It's fair enough to say that you like the personality and playing style of certain players and not of others.
I appreciate Feds abilities and undoubted talent , but rarely root for him.

I find he can be rather patronising and dismissive of other players but I suppose you could say he's earned that right if anyone has.

I often support the French players, they all seem to bring a flair and personality on court with them that I enjoy.

All very subjective I know, but that's what being a fan is all about.

For historical reasons as a family we support Brentford when it comes to football - so it's not all about winners !

gerry70 · Improver

Good question! Can you imagine if that had been Tim v Roger in Glasgow and the scots booed Tim and supported Roger? It would be front page news in every paper in the land, claiming what a shower of racists the scots are. I know Andy is hard going at times (god knows I've been put through it by him!) but the way the fans behaved towards him truly shocked me.

steven · Tennis legend

Nole wins, meaning that 14/15 WTF singles matches this year went with rankings, i.e. all except Fed v del Po. Doubles a bit different!

indiana · Tennis legend

Oh, didn't watch it, but I thought Fed might prevail at the Fed Arena, but I guess it no doubt helped a bit that Djokovic would have been probably more prepared to deal with an anti crowd than Andy had been.

Not been the climax to the season I had hoped for Andy, really ever since being match points up against Djokovic in Shanghai, but at least come the Aussie Open he wil probably have a more supportive crowd than he has had here hmm

I agree it is probably quite an international crowd, but undoubtably the big majority must be Brits and what happened yesterday must seem amazing to anyone outside the UK. Such a pity after Wimbledon and the Olympics with the Fed Arena crowd just being quite so different. Andy can be tough work at times, but yesterday was amazing.

philwrig · Hall of fame

It didn't seem like quite as partisan crowd tonight which makes it even more baffling what happened last night.

KK · Club Coach

Crowd support seemed about 50/50 last night. Although, I was sitting next to such an irritating Federer supporter, it was doubly satisfying when Federer lost.

-- Edited by KK on Tuesday 13th of November 2012 10:19:59 AM

-- Edited by KK on Tuesday 13th of November 2012 10:21:25 AM

Salmon · Tennis legend

Armchair wrote:

I find he can be rather patronising and dismissive of other players...

Extremely. But I doubt that the "OMG!!!ROGER FEDERER!!1" brigade has any idea about that.

-- Edited by Salmon on Wednesday 14th of November 2012 07:34:48 PM