Curse Of Cricket?

If you were in Bangalore you too would have felt it. Inspite of the big names in the world of women's tennis strutting across the stadium, idyllically planted in the middle of the Cubbon Park, the Bangalore Open 2008 did not kick up the frenzy that one had expected it to. Quite ironically, the tournament began and ended with cricket. I even feel tempted to ask if it was cursed bycricket.

There were six players in the world top twenty at this tier-two WTA tournament (Jelena Jankovic, Venus and Serena Williams, Patty Schnyder, Agnes Szavay and Sybille Bammer). The prize money was 600,000 US dollars and it was the biggest women's tennis event not just in India but the whole of South and South East Asia. Players in their absolute professional peak were visiting. The only other time it had happened in Bangalore was 23 years ago, in 1985, when the formidable Swedish line-up with Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and Anders Jarryd had flown down to play a Davis Cup quarter finals against India.(When Bjorn Borg visited Bangalore a few years ago for an exhibition match, he was well past his prime.)

Yet, with all this impressive line up of facts, the Bangalore Open could not stymie the distractions caused by cricket. All through the ten days that the tournament was on, the stadium was hardly half-filled. Even when Venus and Serena were at the centre court, the noisy cheer squadrons were missing and the rows of empty chairs kept their decorum. In the parlance of tennis diplomacy, one could perhaps say that the finals, when Serena met Patty Schnyder, was 'well-attended,' but it was nothing like jam-packed.

What was the curse of cricket on this tournament? The Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, which is a stone's throw from the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA), did not cast an evil spell, but there was a funny coincidence of cricket celebration in the city and in the media.

Around the time the tournament was warming up, Vijay Mallya flew in the Under-19 World Cup winning cricket team from Kaula Lumpur, directly to Bangalore. As usual, there was a rousing reception, firecrackers were burst and the roads were flooded as the boys took a bow through their 10-km trek. The BCCI bosses came, the IPL owners came and there were also the big names of Indian cricket. I am sure that the blaring loudspeakers at the cricket stadium on that day did not reach the precincts of the tennis stadium, but the cricket mirth had its way of travelling to the place. Anyway, there was a splash of cricket in thenewspapers the next day, and tennis was relegated to those cozy inside columns. It looked like cricket had crushed the public's slow-bloom interest in the tennistournament.

That was not all. A couple of days down the line, India seniors came back from Australia and Ferozeshah Kotla saw similar scenes as was witnessed in Bangalore. The media was obliged to play it up. Cricket seemed to be a jealous lover, never letting public attention drop.

As if it were a final act of sabotage, on the day of the tennis finals when Serena was getting past Schnyder, Indian pace-crank Sreeshant walked into the tennis stadium. The crowd, which till thenhad kept its poise, erupted and jeered. So much so that the top ranks at the centre court had to spike their concentration. Well, did the cricketer settle down afterthis? Even if he wanted to, the media, the crowd and worst of all the local tennis officials themselves wouldn't let him be. They pulled him down to the court during a match break in the second set and thrust the mike at him for a short interview. The Italian umpire Seri Raffaella lookedon with wonderment, but who cared?

The tennis officials perhaps thought that they could ride piggyback for some publicity by bringing a cricketer at the centre during an international tennis finals! Would a non-cricket hero, similarly be pulled out for an interview during a cricket match? One should feel happy that nobody thrust a mike at the Williams sisters and asked them who their favourite cricketer was or whether they had a crush over Yuvraj and Dhoni. I wish they had.

That would have fabulously tickled self-importance on the wrong side. Anyway, should one read this incident metaphorically? Is cricket, like the mythological demon, eating up every other sport in this country? I love late cuts, square cuts and those wristy other-worldly glances, but strictly on the cricket field, not on the tennis court.

Besides the omnipresent cricket spoiling the show, Indian tennis' own family feuds were playing in the backdrop throughout the tournament and before. Sania pulling out of the Bangalore Open had set the tone. Then the never ending gangwars between Paes and Bhupathi was a refrain. I wonder why Vijay Amritraj had to pick the finals of the Bangalore Open to read out a statement on how ceasefire had been declared and the warring players would play the Davis Cup tie against Japan in Delhi nextmonth.

The disappointment was written all over on the faces of WTA officials. In a media interview, WTA chief Larry Scott said that the facilities were at their lowest for an international tournament of this scale and stature and they may want to downgrade Bangalore Open to a tier-three event next year. That would mean Bangalore may never see the big players in action again.

Some would argue that there was no 'India interest' at the Bangalore Open and therefore there was disinterest. I would understand if that was said about a team game like cricket or football, but tennis is mostly an individual sport. If there is one popular game in the world in which you cannot make out the nationality of the player through his/her last name it is tennis. One should ask if there is nothing called the pure love of the game? Let's not get into that serious debate, but instead conclude with a question asked with an admittedly contrived jest: Do we watch Sania Mirza for her tennis alone?