imago images / Bernd König
After all, not badly manned: Andrea Petkovic at the serve (Flughafen Tempelhof Berlin, July 18, 2020)
From July 13th to 19th, there was a week of quarantine tennis in Berlin, each in very historic locations. For the first half of the tournament, the Steffi Graf Stadium was converted into a grass field in preparation for Wimbledon. The second half was held in front of a first-class tourist nostalgia panorama, on a suitably asphalt-gray hard court in a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport. Directly from the court a view of a museum-operated DC-4 troop carrier of the US Air Force, which was known to have been in use at this airport for decades, fell.
The finals of the tournament half on grass were scheduled for Wednesday. Continuous rain intervened. In the early evening there was only time for the men. Dominic Thiem defeated the mighty Matteo Berrettini 6: 7, 6: 4, 10: 8. After all, that was a match between number three and number eight in the currently not overly meaningful world rankings. In any case, the Berlin invitation tournament was not badly attended. In addition, as a joker, a veteran like Tommy Haas had been invited, who is no longer an active player, but at least showed himself in a surprisingly excellent form during a show tournament.
The star of the event was Thiem. On Sunday he won his second final in the hangar against Jannik Sinner convincingly with 6: 4, 6: 2. His final comment was significant: “It was super nice here, but I hope that this has been the last exhibition that I play for a while.”
In other words, it is high time that regular tournament operations resumed in early August. The US Open has at least not yet been canceled. The status of the Berlin tournament should also be classified in this context. Was it just a slightly bizarre replacement event for the WTA tournament that was planned in preparation for Wimbledon in June with the same main sponsor, a mattress manufacturer? Or was it something more? A look at a possible future of professional tennis that is reinventing itself as a TV sport?
There is a lot to be said for the new tournament format. First of all, the complete replacement of the linesman with digital video technology. At this point, the match becomes a TV picture. We still potentially have human figures that are placed in a virtual field, the edge of which is decorated with picturesque monuments. The host mode was also TV-friendly, the decisive third set was replaced by a match tie break. This makes the playing time manageable and predictable. To shorten the matter, the doubles are already played in this mode in the regular tournament circus.
Petra Kvitova was not very happy in the match tie break, in which she lost both finals of the women’s competition – each after the first set won – with the identical result of 10: 5.
First, the women’s final of the lawn competition was caught up on the airport tarmac on Friday afternoon. Before that, Kvitova self-ironically expressed hope that she would avoid hitting the plane with her punches. The implicit fear was not entirely unjustified. Kvitova played the match against Elina Switolina in uncompromising bashing mode. At first it was going pretty well, but not for long. Switolina won 3: 6, 6: 1, 10: 5, accomplishing the feat of winning a nominal grass tournament with only a single match on grass, her semi-final against Anastasija Sevastova. On Saturday she took 6: 1, 6: 1 to Switolina Revanche in the hangar and on Sunday also won the final against Kvitova with 3: 6, 6: 3, 10: 5. In this match the Czech seemed to be in control again. For her defeat, a single negligent service game at 3: 4 in the second set was enough, with two minor forehand errors and a few lucky returns from the Latvian. Their defense and first serve were sensational from the second set. In this way she became the most successful player at the “Bett-1-Aces”, even though she had been invited to this tournament at the last minute as a replacement for the injured Caroline Garcia. A classically happy punch line.
By the way, Sevastova’s favorite tournament is the US Open, where she was surprisingly in the semifinals in 2018. The WTA will resume its regular tournament operations in August on clay in Palermo.
