The hangar games could be a new winning streak in tennis. When the finals of the invitation tournament were played out on Sunday in Berlin in a huge aircraft shed of the former Airport Tempelhof, it was not really possible to say goodbye. Developed as a bridge for the Berlin Open women’s tournament, which was canceled due to the corona restrictions, and played out for three days first on the lawn in the Steffi Graf stadium in Grunewald and then for three days on hard court in the backdrop of the former destination of the Berlin Airlift Proven emergency program.
“The discovery of the tournament is the hangar,” enthused tournament director Barbara Rittner. A good six thousand square meters of space and a clear height of a good ten meters offered space for a tennis court and small grandstands for a total of two hundred visitors on the front sides. As an intern at the television station RBB, Rittner had already experienced a horse show in the extremely spacious facility. But she was happy to be overwhelmed again by history and space. The opened rolling gate offered a spectacular view of the airfield with the towers of the Neukölln mosque in the background and a historic plane from the era of the raisin bombers in the foreground.
Tommy Haas is the icing on the cake
Marius Müller-Westernhagen came on Saturday and witnessed how Andrea Petkovic lost to the two-time Wimbledon winner and later tournament runner-up Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic in three sets. He was one of around a hundred spectators. Not even a rock star like him turns the tournament into a public event, since hygiene rules and high admission prices limit visits. “We are now going on”, however Adam Szpyt, head of the main sponsor Bett1, a mattress manufacturer, decided: “We have proven to the world that major sporting events can be played under corona conditions.” Barbara Rittner attested the games “absolute world-class Nivelle ”and praised the fact that the 42-year-old Tommy Haas, who had returned for three games three years after the end of his long career, put the icing on the cake.
Haas, like once with an upturned cap and great ambition at the start, did great. He wrestled a third sentence from the 18-year-old young star Jannik Stiller. Jan-Lennard Struff, number 34 in the world, he wrestled in two sentences. And against the outstanding Dominic Thiem, third in the world rankings, who won the final against Jannik Sinner this Sunday, he won two set balls. Then he couldn’t. Haas had to give up his game for third place because the calf pinched.
Haas has shown, former manager Edwin Weindorfer praised that he was flying the flag, while players like Alexander Zverev, who had been expected in Berlin, canceled. The tour organizers WTA and ATP were interested in the Berlin concept, the tournament organizers from Berlin, Stuttgart, Vienna and Palma de Mallorca reported. In order to be able to resume operations, they may also have to do without spectators and put the players in a safety bubble. “We will try to share our hygiene concept with others,” promised Weindorfer.
Whether the tennis circus opens its gates again in August or stays in the forced break – the Austrian impresario is prepared. “We gave the starting signal,” he says of the invitation tournament with a total of $ 200,000 in prize money in Berlin: “We created a brand.” Thanks to electronic monitoring, he doesn’t need line judges. All-round LED display and twelve cameras on the court make every performance and every mistake, every gesture and every facial expression visible. “Maybe this was a foretaste of the US Open,” Weindorfer said. The future of tennis – is it coming, will the new reality come from the hangar in Tempelhof?
According to his imagination, this format, six women and six men, will move to urban locations that are as spectacular as the aircraft hangar in Berlin after the season, i.e. in November or December. He does make the ‘locations’, as he calls the addresses, a secret. They should be in Europe and covered, he didn’t want to reveal more. But he has already brought up the hall of Zurich main station as a possibility. And on Sunday Barbara Rittner whispered meaningfully: “Hamburg is a beautiful city.”
Wherever: The format is expandable. With eight players each and a second place, two small tournaments could be played from the quarter-finals – an imitation of the big championships with qualifications and 256 participants as well as tens of thousands of visitors. But just a clear and manageable and therefore possibly realistic event. Sponso Szpyt is therefore optimistic, according to his entrepreneurial nature. “This has become a modern global event,” he cheered the tournament from the aircraft hangar. “This is an investment in the future.”
.
