Cheap and greedy at the same time
Greetings from the Madrid Open! It´s a tournament you can attend at such a small budget it´s even laughable. On the first Sunday almost all the top women are in action, but the ticket price for the ground is 5 euros. Yesterday I saw Kerber, Kvitova and Azarenka up close.
On the other hand I lost 8 euros, because the security guy threw my bag of nuts to trash. This has never happened to my at any tournament. I was angry about that for a couple of hours and even more so, because the food went to trash. They could have put it aside and give it to the ballboys or linesmen as a snack. That´s what we do in the rich western world.
After losing my snack I was forced to queue for their “official food”, which was pretty hard to get. The queues were terrible. Then I checked one hot dog stall with a short queue. What I didn´t know that there was one man there who came to place an order for a child group of 30! OK, not an optimal thing, but still a lot tennis with a low price tag. Except for it doesn´t feel that special.
Top tier tournaments should be somehow hard to attend, tickets should be pricey and so on. It was the same as four years ago when I first came to this tournament – the atmosphere just doesn´t seem to be there. The stands on the Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Court No. 3 are so empty you are embarrassed. Wathing Kerber coming to play her first match on court 3 was quite an anticlimax and she she played accordingly. With a weak serve and shaking her hand continuously she obviously carried an injury. But still she could not provide any resistance to Barbora Strycova.
Kvitova and Azarenka were quite good, but it was great to see Laura Robson back after a long absense. Her game has big potential if she only stayed injury-free.
Tennis-Minna 