Ever noticed how the color scheme of a particular professional tournament can affect your experience? From the textures of the surroundings to triggered memories that may or not have anything to do with tennis, color coaxes and can even envelop. Wimbledon offers the cozy, garden-like comfort of its green lawn, accompanied by a regal and luscious purple. Then there’s Roland-Garros. Call it red clay, but it sure seems orange, summoning up the edible qualities of cheddar cheese and orange sherbet. I once heard a tale of a coach who made his charges spoon up the clay and take bites of it.
What then engages the senses at the Miami Open? This was my question as I strolled through the grounds of this year’s tournament – my first trip there since its relocation to Hard Rock Stadium in 2019. Hard Rock Stadium is also the home of the Miami Dolphins; hence, the omnipresence of aqua and orange. According to the website Color Psychology, “The combination of Aqua and Orange symbolizes a blend of aquatic grace and the warmth of the Miami sun, while the Blue accents evoke the strength and vastness of the ocean.” Remarkable how two colors so soothing could adorn football, this most violent of games (at least physically).
As fate has it, for me, those Dolphins colors convey talisman-like significance. Starting in 1970, when I was ten years old, though it would be 15 years before I set foot in Florida, the Dolphins became my favorite football team. Everything from the colors to the ‘70 squad’s ascent into greatness captivated me. This affection was crystallized in 1974 when I won $25 betting on the Dolphins to win Super Bowl VII and used that money to buy a coffee table booked titled The Pro Football Experience. More than 50 years later, I recall carrying the 6.25 pound book home under my left arm, in the other hand holding my silver Arthur Ashe Head Competition racket.
So throughout Hard Rock Stadium, then mixed with now, an orange and aqua lattice of past football and present tennis. Walls inside the stadium were adorned with large black-and-white photos of such Dolphins greats as Bob Griese and Larry Csonka. On the Stadium Court, defending Miami Open champion Aryna Sabalenka practiced serves, aiming at five targets with a devotion similar to what Dolphins coach Don Shula had imposed on his players for 26 seasons.
But while the Dolphins competed every seven days, just 72 hours earlier, 3,000 miles across the country, Sabalenka had won a thrilling final at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Now she was in the city where she owned a home, hoping to become the first woman to win the challenging “Sunshine Double” since Iga Swiatek did that four years ago. Asked to say how many people comprised her traveling team – the size of which in pro tennis is each year growing closer to NFL-like proportions – Sabalenka made a characteristic joke at her own expense: “My whole team is my mental coach.”
Photo credit: Mauricio Paiz
From deep inside the gigantic football stadium, a trek to the field courts. At 4:30 on a blustery Monday afternoon, rising young American Learner Tien was practicing with Stefanos Tsitsipas on Court 8. Once a top ten mainstay, the stylish Greek arrived in Miami ranked 51.
Ten minutes after watching the Tien-Tsitsipas session, it was off to Court 5 to see Lulu Sun. Back in 2024, Sun was the sensation at Wimbledon. In ten dazzling days, she sprinted out of the qualifying to the quarterfinals, lit up the All England Club, and soared into the top 60. But now, in front of 80 people, the 111th-ranked New Zealander was back in the qualifying. Despite getting into the main draw off the heels of a win over Donna Vekic – the woman who’d ended her Wimbledon run — Sun’s sun set when she was beaten in the round by Taylor Townsend.
Three days following his session with Tien, Tsitsipas would earn a theoretically redemptive victory over fifth-seeded Alex de Minaur. But then, in the next round, he’d win but a single game versus Arthur Fils. “Have you ever seen me miss every shot after the serve like I’m doing today?” said Tsitsipas as he struggled under the lights. “It doesn’t happen. I cannot see the ball. I don’t know how he sees the ball.”
The three years since Tsitsipas had reached the Australian Open singles final seemed more like 30. The road back to the elite also seemed long for 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu. Despite generating enough results at ITF events to rise from 227 at the start of the year to 146 in Miami, Andreescu was beaten in the last round of qualifying by 95th-ranked Katie Voleynets.
As Tsitsipas, Sun, and Andreescu showed, while it’s one thing to witness a player in full swing, only when you see a pro compete in several events does the cumulative and transitional intensity of the circuit hit you. Call it The Pro Tennis Experience, a journey far longer and more labor-intensive than the one I’d taken when I’d lugged the football book home 52 years ago. Melbourne, Paris, London, and New York are the ones we know most. But there were dozens more too. Just prior to Miami, there’d been Indian Wells, followed by a 3,000-mile flight to Florida across a nation in the middle of a government shutdown. Come April, the traveling tennis circus would head 3,000 miles across the Atlantic for the European clay season.
But for now, the Miami Open commanded the tennis stage. On a fence at the end of the Butch Buchholz Family Court there rested a poster with these words from the tournament’s founder, Hall of Famer Butch Buchholz: “We [my brother Cliff and I] had the idea to invite 300,000 to our wedding. And we wanted everyone to have a great time – feed them, offer them merchandise, play music – and enjoy an entertainment experience at a tennis event for men and women.” There were 188 orange covered chairs fans sat in to watch the tennis on big video screens. There were shops, selling clothes, tennis equipment, and other items. And then there was the food court, brimming with offerings ranging from pizza and sushi to pretzels, hamburgers, hotdogs (including the $100 Golden Goat Caviar Glizzy Hot Dog), tacos, and enough ice cream choices to keep three dairies profitable for years.
Passing on dispensing a Benjamin for the wiener due to both economic and health concerns, I was offered the unofficial food item of Florida Tennis magazine — an acai bowl, complete with strawberries, whey protein, and granola. This dish was initially savored by the magazine’s founder, the late and beloved Jim Martz. And in the same way the Corleone family in The Godfather passed on its mansion to Pete Clemenza and Frank Pentangeli, the acai bowl is now favored by Florida Tennis publisher Matt Pressman and Florida Tennis podcast host Adam Ross. Even though no one with the physical leverage of Csonka was present to enforce the request, this was unquestionably an offer I couldn’t refuse.
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Florida Tennis is pleased to have this contribution from longstanding tennis writer Joel Drucker. While in Miami, Joel also participated extensively at the popular tennis event, RacquetX, in his role as executive editor of tennisplayer.net, the leading-edge instructional publication. Photo credit (top): Mauricio Paiz.