STATE OF PLAY

THOUGH GAMES IN FRONT OF EMPTY STANDS MAKE LITTLE SENSE, THE ACTION CONTINUES UNABATED

Around the world, sport is back. The sight of dozens of fans beamed in on screens into largely empty arenas, cheering ecstatically for their teams or favourite players, has become a fixture of these denuded events, a grim simulation—like canned cheering—of the way things were. Still, cricket series have been played, the IPL, in all its boisterous, abrasive glory, is back at the weekend, the US Open tennis has just concluded while the US Open golf will begin on September 17, the NBA playoffs are ongoing, the NFL and English Premier League have begun new seasons, Formula 1 is back and badminton’s Thomas and Uber Cup team tournament is scheduled to begin in Denmark in October.

Already, though, seven countries have withdrawn from the latter and Indian badminton star Saina Nehwal has tweeted, “Is it safe enough to conduct this tournament during this time”, with two question marks appended for emphasis. The NBA is being held in a so-called bubble, in Disney World in Florida where the teams have been sealed off from the outside world and, early on, players posted pictures of their forlorn packed lunches, food not so much for professional athletes as travelling salesmen at a budget conference—all wilted cheese sandwiches, mouldy apples and bags of pita chips.

Players in New York at the US Open tennis tournament were criticised for complaining about the onerous conditions in which they were forced to isolate themselves, particularly after Frenchman Benoit Paire tested positive for the coronavirus just before the grand slam tournament began. His compatriot Kristina Mladenovic, who was 6-1, 5-1 up before she lost in three sets in the second round, was scathing about the prison-like conditions in which the players were being held. Former world number one and US Open champion Andy Roddick said she needed a lesson in perspective. But Mladenovic’s frustration, if not her analogy, was understandable. Half of the top-ranked women’s doubles team in the world, she was forced to withdraw from the doubles tournament because of her contact with Paire. Even worse, Paire who had tested positive, later tested negative for the virus in a follow-up test. “If I had known,” Mladenovic said, “that playing cards for 40 minutes with a mask... would have these consequences, I would never have set foot in this tournament.”

Many players did not, including world number one women’s player Ashleigh Barty, who is also skipping the French Open, which begins on September 21, and defending men’s champion Rafael Nadal who could have equalled his great rival Roger Federer’s record total of grand slam singles titles with a win in New York. Nadal will begin as favourite to do just this at Roland Garros, where he has won 12 times, including the last three in a row. Federer, recovering from knee surgery, will only return to court next year. But the US Open ended well, with Naomi Osaka, who wore a face mask emblazoned with the name of a different Black victim of US police brutality for each of her seven matches, beating Victoria Azarenka in the women’s final, and Dominic Thiem coming back from two sets down to beat Alexander Zverev in five in the men’s event. Thiem, who had lost three previous finals, including the Australian Open final this year, is tipped to be the next great men’s champion, though it appears as if the men’s tour, led by the sometimes petulant Djokovic, is headed for a relatively fallow period as Nadal and especially Federer slow down. With a variety of skilled, charismatic players at the top of the game, women’s tennis is more fun to follow right now, as Serena Williams still chases the elusive slam that will draw her level with Margaret Court, though most fair-minded observers will acknowledge that she has already surpassed the Aussie whose 11 Australian Opens, when it was the weakest of the Slams, inflate her total.

So what of the panoply of sporting performance being broadcast on our screens? Certainly, the quality and drama does not seem dimmed by the loss of the crowd. But, for the TV viewer, as we now all are, the action can seem to lack both punctuation and rhythm, deprived as we are of the proper acknowledgement by the crowd—via gasp, delirium and prolonged buzz for instance—of astounding athleticism at a crucial moment. In any case, can a government jobsworth tell us why we can’t hold matches in partially-filled outdoor stadiums with fans appropriately distanced and masked?

Games in front of empty stands make little sense. Even commercial logic militates against the exercise, as evidenced by reduced TV contracts and lower-level professional clubs facing extinction. The action, as we now know, continues unabated. Without the people, though, the poetry is lost, the intensity of feeling that gives the action its meaning, that makes it something more than just a dull exhibition of alienating superiority.

—Shougat Dasgupta