Dhe disappointment could not be ignored in the interim results presented by tennis organizer Edwin Weindorfer on Saturday afternoon in Cologne. “We will also play the second week without a spectator, unfortunately there is no other option,” said the Austrian on the semi-final day of the first of two ATP tournaments in the city on the Rhine, which Alexander Zverev won on Sunday with a 6: 3, 6: 3 final success against the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
In September, Weindorfer was still full of enthusiasm for the presentation of the two competitions, 6000 people should come every day. It was a time when the disciplined organizational artists from Germany were admired everywhere and always new steps back to a bearable normality seemed possible under pandemic conditions. At the beginning of last week, 999 people per day were still allowed in the large arena, now the games are taking place in front of empty chairs. “We have refunded all tickets,” reported Weindorfer, who is very concerned about the future of an entire industry.
Big names expected
The second tournament will take place this week, once again big players like Zverev, Andy Murray, Marin Cilic, Diego Schwartzmann or the Germans Jan-Lennard Struff and Daniel Altmeier will compete. And nobody will be able to experience the athletes live. “It’s a bit sad,” said the tournament director Barbara Rittner, who nevertheless found a few words of encouragement. “They are great matches, interesting matches, lots of close matches.” And the players are happy to have this opportunity to compete in sports. “I am very grateful for this event,” said Struff in view of the reduced schedule. In the first week he was eliminated in round one, but now he has a new chance to achieve more with a first-round game against Italian Marco Cecchinato.
It actually has something tragic that such a high-class tennis tournament takes place in Germany, but for fans of this sport there is no noticeable difference to any competition in Australia or China. Because “the event is really great,” said Rittner. Zverev, who had not yet won a tournament before Cologne in 2020, but has noticeably matured and can look back on his strongest Grand Slam year, has so far offered a pretty interesting show in the large arena near the banks of the Rhine. “I’ve won a tournament on the tour every year since 2016. That is a statistic that is important to me, ”said the man from Hamburg, who did not play his best tennis consistently.
But in tight moments he developed this maturity and this inner strength again and again, which helped him to his good performance at the three Grand Slams of this year. You have to “somehow get along”, said Zverev several times in Cologne: with bad days, with the empty hall, with all the unexpected twists and turns that all people have to live with at the moment. The 23-year-old professional has learned a lot at this level.
Minimize “ghost game character”
The organizers of the tournaments find it much more difficult to cope with all the adversities, they had come up with all sorts of special features: A kind of live hawk-eye, for example, with tight balls, the video screen showed without a challenge how tight the ball was in the field or out of bounds was. A small entertainment program was also offered during the change of sides; Similar to one of those late night shows, which are loosened up by short appearances by music groups, a band played soulful hip-hop interludes. “We are trying to minimize the ghost game character,” said Weindorfer, whose confidence was clearly damaged by the Cologne event.
The entire event industry is threatened in its existence if not even more spectators are allowed at events for which a conclusive hygiene concept is available. Maintaining distances would not be a problem in the large hall, huge fans exchange all of the air within an hour. “We have to find solutions in politics, otherwise there won’t be many events next year,” said Weindorfer. After all, the organizers of Wimbledon announced that their tournament, which was canceled this year, will definitely take place again in 2021. If necessary without an audience.
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