Spiky Piqué goes on the defensive as Davis Cup’s new look makes slow start
There were not many echoes of the past but a fair few of the present as the World Cup Of Tennis creaked into existence in a dark and lonely place here on Monday.
They tried. My, how they tried … but all the smoke, mirrors, bells and whistles, singing and dancing, clapping and screaming could not disguise the swaths of empty seats in the Caja Mágica for the opening ceremony of DC Mark II.
While the artful and expensive legerdemain strained to convince the third-full stadium that consigning 119 years of Davis Cup tradition to the history books was a good idea, the new tournament did grab the attention of the faithful.
There was a lot of noise for Italy and Canada in the afternoon session on court two; the Russians and Croatia roused the cheers of their respective hardcore on centre court; and court three, where Great Britain will surely bring a bigger crowd against the Netherlands on Wednesday, had Belgium and Colombia going at it like kids at a party.
Yet confusion is attended by uncertainty. As fans are educated in the new ways, they remain part of the experiment. Nevertheless there is decent goodwill for this solid try at saving the oldest event in international team sport. Everyone, it seems, likes Gerard Piqué, whose baby it is, with $3bn pledged over 25 years. But that is a bit like promising to bring a free turkey round to your house every year, with the reasonable expectation you will forget about it after Boxing Day.
Piqué has said this is still a waitand-see proposition. On Sunday he said: “It is true it is a new format and it is something that people don’t know yet.” But he is honest enough to admit nobody knows if the game can accommodate two so-similar events six weeks apart – his Davis Cup and the ATP Cup which starts in Australia in January, with many of the same cast.
It is all good value, mind: three matches of your choice for €25 (£21) on a chilly winter Monday on the outskirts of the capital cannot be bad. Rafael Nadal is driving the show for Spain and for Piqué, his Barcelona friend and confidant. If Nadal fails, this is going to be a long week.
As the head of Kosmos Tennis – a subsidiary of his global company formed specifically to run the new Davis Cup – Piqué is sensitive to criticism and he dived into Twitter on day one to set one cynic straight. “Are you sure there are just 15?” he inquired of a tweeter who was a bit brutal in his crowd estimate.
Earlier Piqué had posted a response to a photo of the sparse gathering: “It’s easy to take a picture before the players arrive at the court and criticise. The true atmosphere during the game is this one.” He took it down when the match did not attract the expected hordes.
With luck and good management, it will all pick up as the competition settles down and the stronger teams go through to the final stages but colliery brass bands have played to bigger audiences.