Rally: The Buzz from Rome

Kamakshi Tandon is one of the few North American journalists in Rome this week. She's making her first trip to the Foro Italico, so we're going to trade a few thoughts on the city and the event here. You can follow her tweets from Rome @**Kamakshi_Tandon**

Hi Kamakshi,

“Ciao-ciao-ciao.” Buzz-buzz-buzz.

Those are my sonic memories of Rome—the “ciao”s that everyone greeted each other with, rapid fire, and the background buzz of motorbikes on the streets, like a massive swarm of flies. It’s not the world’s quietest city. I have a vivid memory of a Roman woman, in giant heels, getting on her bike on the sidewalk, saying "Ciao" cheerfully to her friends, and bouncing right out into the roaring traffic without even looking. Apparently, she lived.

I think this is your first time at the event, am I right? As I wrote yesterday, I’ve done it just once myself, in 2007. Seeing the Foro Italico on TV, and hearing the generally awful disco they play between games, reminds me of the dancing usher girls who let spectators wander in whenever they wanted to wander in. It's one place where the pros basically had to suck it up and play with people moving around in their line of vision. Similarly, I remember trying to stand in line for pizza on the grounds and watching as 15 people walked right in front of me and ordered. I tried briefly to protest, but quickly realized it was useless. Not much for queuing, the Italians.

Tell me a few of your first impressions. When I was there, it was still a men’s-only event—the women played the following week. The main stadium was a fairly old wooden one, which I think has been torn down. The most charming area were the backcourts, under tall pine trees, with amphitheatre-style seating—a very intimate feel back there. But I think at least one of those courts has been made into a mini-arena. There was a general pleasant sense of cracked decay about the place, which I liked, but which was a bit of a shock compared to the giant and much newer facilities at the U.S. tournaments.

Beyond that, what’s the atmosphere among the players as they come out of Madrid and get back to red clay? Things got pretty divisive last week on the men’s side. Do you feel like that’s lingered at all, or is everyone in the traveling circus moving on? Personally, I like seeing some vintage back-and-forth, up-and-back dirtball again.

Steve

Hi Steve,

This is definitely a city of monuments, separated by traffic. I thought the way New Yorkers step out into the road without any warning was dangerous and unnecessary; here, it’s practically the only way to get across the street—there are few traffic lights and cars generally won’t stop at the crosswalk if you’re just standing there, so you must literally put your body between them and the road to get across. Parting the traffic seemed pretty daunting to me at first, so I would just stand there and wait for some locals to come along. I’m doing a little better now, but it’s all a little too hair-raising for just walking around. In Italy, chickens don’t cross the road.

As for the tournament, it’s always interesting to see in person one you’ve seen and heard so much about. It feels like every description of the Foro includes something about the pines overhead, and now I understand why. They frame your vision and give the place a sort of majestic calm. They’ve clearly been around for a while, so you know the place has too. The other touchstone is, of course, the original stadium, now the Pietrangeli court. Dubious history or not, I love it, and can’t believe how small it is. Probably smaller than Court 18 at Wimbledon, which just shows how the scale of tournaments has changed. The marble seating gives it a sort of heft, and the orange clay looks gorgeous against it. And of course, those statues. Not the kind of thing one would do today, I suppose, but they give the place an ornamental feel. I like the one with the nearly naked guy holding what looks like skis. Now that takes…

The other thing I like about the court is that because it’s sunk in, you can just walk up and start watching. At least, you can when it’s not Seppi and Isner playing there like they were yesterday afternoon, when people were jammed into the court (as you’ll remember, there are no seats as such, just marble slabs) and crowded all around. The only problem is how windy it gets down there, and sends the clay blowing all around. As Julia Goerges said after one of those sandstormy matches, “I think I could build a new clay court out of myself.”

I think the new main stadium is a good one too, though it’s a little steep for me. The lack of corporate boxes is a definite plus and it’s the right size—not too huge. I went out to watch a bit of Novak Djokovic and Bernard Tomic the other day, and the other thing I noticed was the emotion of the crowds. We've talked about the Rome crowds before, of course, with their coin tossing and opera singing and what not. But you could sense it even in this fairly routine match, the enthusiasm with which they clapped for winners and reacted to the players.

Hearing them last night also made me realize that this is the rare week in which it is Djokovic, not Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, who is the favored son. They love him here—Djokovic speaks Italian, this was one of his first big titles, and there's just that connection between him and crowds that at other places is usually reserved for one of the other two. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out during the week.

I think the place has been spruced since you and Tom were here. As you said, there’s a new stadium, next to the outside courts, which are now a bit hidden away. The grounds look very nice, with lots of room and spick and span booths lining the walkways. Definitely feels like a Masters. As a working journalist, the conditions leave a lot to be desired—they’ve moved the press centre about as far away as it’s possible to get without actually putting it off-site, and arranged everything else to be just about as far as possible too. But for being out and about and watching, it’s a nice set-up.

And of course, we’re back on red clay, which the players do seem happy about, even though there doesn’t seem to be much clay on the courts at all. I’ll admit I was deeply suspicious last week when all that complaining began about the way the blue clay was playing—the tournament has had a blue clay practice court for years, and they’ve had exhibition matches on it, and as far as I know no one ever said it was unplayable. So I wondered if Nadal and Djokovic and others were just taking the opportunity to criticize now they had something to fix on—namely, the colour—while these were just the same slippery, fast-playing courts Madrid has always had in this arena.

But it does seem like there was a problem with the courts, independent of the colour. I wonder how the players would have reacted if it had been the same courts, but the colour hadn’t been changed.

I don’t think there’s any lingering effect, but there does seem to have been a rank-and-file problem with the courts—it wasn’t just Nadal and Djokovic. Andy Murray, who pulled out with a back problem, said other players had applauded him for not playing, saying things like "you were smarter than we were." Kvitova described it as "one-shot" tennis, and there’s been general head-shaking whenever it’s been brought up.

But it's over for the moment, and so far things have been proceeding pretty normally, to what looks like an interesting weekend conclusion on both sides.