Madrid Crisis Center, Day 4
Good morning. Here's today's post for discussing the tennis that's going on in Madrid, and any other tennis-related issues of the day. As usual we ask that you keep the talk focused on tennis until after all of the matches are over. As mentioned yesterday, we'll provide you with Overflow posts as needed; however, from now on only the first Overflow will be linked from this page - you will find any later Overflows by following links from the initial one, just as you normally would when moving around in TennisWorld.
Today's Order of Play can be found on this link. As far as I can tell only two of the main courts are televised, so I don't think any of us will catch sight of James Blake taking on Victor Hanescu, Viktor Troicki up against Nikolay Davydenko. or Jie Zheng's encounter with Amelie Mauresmo. It seems that one previously-expressed wish of mine has come to pass, though - the men's match (today it's Roger Federer versus Robin Soderling, followed by Venus Williams vs. Alisa Kleybanova) precedes the women's match, which is the reverse order to what normally happens at Grand Slams.
In fact my original wish was that the men's and women's matches be alternated in the first slot during the evenings, not that the men should receive priority. But the same ordering happened yesterday, and based on what I've seen in Madrid in earlier years at the indoor tournament, I would be surprised if Rafael Nadal isn't allocated the 8 p.m. first night slot tomorrow evening, and on at least one subsequent evening, assuming he's still around at a later stage. The first night match in Madrid looks like a big night out for many of those with box seats, and local celebrities are often spotted in the audience at that time. Many times last year, when I was at the Madrid indoor tournament amongst the photographers, I would find most of those around me scrambling for a picture of someone famous - I, of course, had no idea who they were focusing on.
In any event, I can't work out whether this ordering is partly related to TV rights, or whether the organisers are giving the public what they think they want. The second night match in Madrid at the earlier version of the ATP tournament was always more poorly-attended than the first (the boxes always empty out after the first match), even when a local player was involved. Where I live, in the UK, the men's night match is televised, as is the rest of the day, via Sky TV, which screens all of the ATP Masters events. However, WTA coverage is minimal - just two hours today, on Eurosport. Perhaps some of our Spanish posters could chime in on this issue regarding TV coverage of the ATP and the WTA locally.
As always, enjoy today's tennis.
-- Rosangel Valenti
[Note: as of around 13.25 EST, we are moving comments to an Overflow post. See the link in blue below - RV]
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