Tennis, Anyone?

We went to the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament in New Haven this evening, my very first attendance at a live tennis match. Mama and I have watched women's tennis on tv, randomly, over the years, rooting mainly for Lindsay Davenport (who is now retired. And we got into it way after Navratilova) but not really following the tour at all. But free tickets came our way to this and we said yay!

I must say, professional tennis is just different from other professional sports that I've attended (including basketball and baseball, but, oddly, never football that I recall) or watched on tv (lots of football; well, lots for us). Everything is different from the treatment of athletes to the decorum of the game, to the sponsors and the spectators, down to the food and where you can eat it. It's a completely different sports culture.

• People who watch tennis actually play tennis, probably competitively or at least seriously, and not just pick-up games.
• And from all levels of the sport--there seemed to be a lot of junior players and their families hanging about.
• Many of the fans wear fancy garden party clothes to these tennis matches, just like in the movies. Lots of pastels and beige pants and button-down shirts and sweaters tied around the neck. Seriously, even in August. I even saw pearls.
• It's a very diverse audience internationally, with lots of French and Russian, among other languages, spoken. It was a white audience, but not as white as I expected, actually (and Mama helped!).
• And there were lots of women, making up at least 50% of the fans.
• And so many lesbians! It was right up there with the WNBA and Dinah Shore Classic. And Mauresmo wasn't even playing tonight . . .
• And I'd say several of the fans never even came to their seats, but milled around drinking and eating (okay, so that's not different from other sports, except maybe in what they were eating and drinking!)
• The sponsors were upscale--it's not American beer and cars--but watches and insurance and the like.
• And in the booths set up in the outside "fairway," there were people from several investment firms, luxury vacations, fancy handbags, etc.
• Oh, and the food!! Sure, burgers and pizza. But Mama had fried clams (instead of lobster) and I polished off Crepes Suzette and crepes with strawberries and nutella. CREPES! And all the people at this both were French speakers! In chef whites!
• And there were potted flowers everywhere, even on the court! And you know someone is responsible for watering those flowers til the end of the game.
• It's a spectator sport, officially, but the spectator is very much suppressed and minimized: there is no cheering during the match, almost no eating, no moving around, no talking more than a whisper, and no returning to your seat except at every other set or so (so time those bathroom visits carefully). You can clap in the few seconds before the umpire yells "time!" Otherwise, the officials and players want to pretend you aren't there. (And when the umpire noticed people "misbehaving," she got on their case. And we saw it happen a few times).
• Which means that you actually watch the match, because you can't do anything else, creating a high level of intimacy and attention.
• And the players are quite catered to--Mama counted 14+ people staffing a match between the two players, who never had to get their own water or towels or anything. And the coaches sit still on the sidelines until the players call them! (I think it's a rule). But in the end, the players seemed approachable, signing autographs, knocking autographed balls into the crowd, and gamefully talking to the announcer afterwards (well, Kuznetsova did; I think it's usually the winners).
• In the end, the culture of tennis seems more like opera than sports (is this is what golf is like? is it because of tennis's relatively elite status? or is it just CT/Yale? Which seems odd, in a way, because the tickets would have been cheaper than the cheapest Yankees' seats, actually). There was even a polite standing ovation at the end.

And so I was completely uncomfortable in the beginning, unsure of the rules, which seemed to be numerous and unfamiliar. Despite that (or maybe because of it because I spent as much time pondering the game and its culture as watching the ball fly over the net, while Mama was into strokes and percentages and strategies. But then I'm the big-picture thinker and she's detail-girl), we had a great time and saw a strong match between Kuznetsova and Zheng (6-1, 6-7, 6-4). I'd go again, for sure, especially to practice the culture before heading to the "big leagues" of the US Open in Queens sometime . . .