It’s been a while and my apologies for those who follow my blog regularly. But I’m back and here is another one of my ‘tales from the tour’ and this one you just couldn’t make up. It was so bad it was amusing.
So at a recent ITF W75 event, my player went on court to play her match. What followed was just simply chaotic and all credit goes to the two players for actually completing the match without losing their minds!
All started well but within a very short time it was clear that this match wasn’t destined to be an uneventful one! In the two hours that followed the distractions that the players had to deal with included:
- a random young child wandering on court to go to see his ballboy brother;
- floodlights coming on mid point, mid game;
- bull dozers driving past the court to park up on an adjacent site;
- one player being told she could not converse with her coach as said coach was not wearing the appropriate foot ware – a new one on me!
- highly questionable line calls – and many of them;
- a malfunctioning score board showing the wrong opponent, and frequently, the wrong score;
- an umpire who awarded a game to the receiver when the score was in fact 40-15 in favour of the server;
- one player asking for the physio to come at the change of ends to treat an injury but no one came as the walkie talkies were not charged;
- constant noise from spectators sitting by the court, eating and chatting rather than actually watching the match.
The distractions were unbelievable and as I have said, the players did well to stay focused and to finish the match. But this kind of match occurs more often than you would think, especially at ITF Tour level.
Fortunately the matches that followed on subsequent days were a little more ‘organised’ and the distractions fewer! It really was shambolic!
#realitytennis
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