The Rome Masters Part Two: The “Ciao” Factor

It’s a finely balanced thing, the mix of revelry and restraint, and the Roman tennis fans have mastered it to perfection.

It’s the “ciao factor.”

Everyone is out to have fun, take in the sun, greet friends, take their children, and wear their hearts on their sleeves. Yet the minute the ball is in play, a hush descends, and a rapt attention elicits a communal “shhhhh” every time the tennis draws excited gasps.

It’s a hush into which even the action of a camera’s shutter seems to intrude.

Yet people happily buy their water and ices from the sellers weaving up and down the steps, passing bottles, euros, and thanks along the ranks.

People shunt into closer seats until the right owner returns. It’s friendly, relaxed, and easy-going; yet passionate and absorbed.

They appreciate high standards of play, and are entirely intolerant of any hint of unfairness. Woe betide the player who questions a call or summons the umpire to confirm whether an apparently blistering winner was in.

Some do try it. A very tetchy Nicolas Almagro, on a small outside court, complained about the noise, about the speed of the ball kids, about life in general. He was soon jeered and whistled for his every move.

It is an unforgiving approach, but it is even-handed. Any and every player who departed from the Roman protocol—and it happened to Rafael Nadal, too—quickly fell into line.

Watching Friends and Eyeing Up the Competition

It’s a moot point: Did Nadal appear on the bench behind the Center Court umpire’s chair to support compatriot David Ferrer, or to check out the opposition in Andy Murray?

As it turned out, it was Ferrer who Nadal needed to check out: These two would eventually meet in the final.

Nadal also hung around to check out John Isner and Sam Querrey, who knocked up together after Nadal’s own practice. Maybe he just likes watching tennis. Then again, perhaps he wanted to know how the opposition was playing!

Meanwhile, during the third Roger Federer and Yves Allegro doubles match, Stanislas Wawrinka appeared behind their seats to watch progress. It was not good, and it was probably just as well that he disappeared to play his own singles match before the Swiss pairing bid farewell from Rome.

Federer himself was hugely interested in progress on the adjoining doubles court during his second round match.

There is with Federer, occasionally, a suggestion that he is easily bored if progress between points and games is slow. Here, he simply stood, hands on hips, watching the match alongside.

The winners happened to be the Swiss duo’s opponents in the next round, and Federer constantly checked out their score. But he looked decidedly chilled in the process.

La Dolce Vita: Fashion, Fans, and Fun

French fans have a certain “je ne sais quoi:” elegant, groomed, a worked image. But they have nothing on the Italians, who have a happy knack of setting a standard entirely impossible for mere tourists to emulate.

A modest heel on the cobbled paths of Rome reduces most women to a hobbling snail’s pace. Yet the Foro Italico was replete with fashion plates in linen shifts and stiletto heels, sporting Gucci bags.

The men, too, carried off the finest wool suits and hand-made brogues as though it was second nature.

The temperatures soared, there was little shade, yet they looked constantly cool in every sense of the word. It was enough to make an everyday Brit—cowed beneath a sunhat and slathered in factor 25—weep with envy.

Noises Off...

The Foro Italico’s Center Court is a near perfect arena.

Echoing the shape of Rome’s most famous site, the Colosseum, it curves around the court like an intimate embrace. Yet it rises at an increasing trajectory to its rim, giving all 10,500 spectators a near unimpeded sight line.

And no one is far from the action. The court is set below ground level to minimize the climb for spectators. The television cameras, umpire’s chair, and photographers’ bay are a just a couple of meters from the court’s edge.

It means that every sound is pin sharp.

It means that the slap of a shanked ball reverberates around the enclosed space.

And when the paramedics arrive to stretcher a woman from an upper gangway, the attention of everyone is drawn to the poor unfortunate.

The proximity of spectators to players also means that the surface dust drifts from players’ shoes into the onlookers’ eyes with the lightest of breeze. It’s a small price to pay for a seat that reveals each muscle contraction and every bead of sweat as it drops to the ground.

…And Sights On

Viewed through the television screen, the game-by-game floor show loses its ebb and flow. The advert breaks, in effect, deprive the viewer of an assortment of activities.

There are the activities we know about: Courts are dragged between sets to even out the grit. But the low-tech supplement is the besom broom drawn along the lines to clear them of their orange film.

We know that players take comfort breaks during long matches, and that line judges have shifts. We rarely see an umpire disappear for some relief or descend to flex muscles and stretch legs, as Mohamed Lahyani did in the Nadal and Ernests Gulbis semifinal.

And almost never do we see running repairs that involve hammer and nails. That is precisely what happened twice in one match to the baseline of Rome's show court: one man tapping in tacks, another looking on in approval!

Beauty in Unexpected Places

The terracotta rectangle is a thing of beauty, vibrant in its range of color from dry, pale orange to the deep rust of damp shadows.

The dust, though, pervades every crevice—hair, eyes, and shoes—so it is regularly hosed down.

What we don’t notice is the fine-tuned skill required to spread the water evenly to the court’s edges without spraying spectators or players.

The snaking, swirling arcs of water draw deep patterns on the surface and catch the brilliant sunshine in their droplets. A small, transient moment of watery beauty amid the shimmering heat of this tennis cauldron.

But Best of All, Tennis Up Close and Personal

There are the tickets for the Center Court, and then there are ground tickets.

But both provide access to the two practice courts, the four outer match courts, and, best of all, the second “show” court.

The Pietrangeli court, encircled by just a dozen or so rows of seats that descend from a grassy surround into the sun-drenched bowl, provides the perfect spectator conditions.

It hosts the top players through most of the week: singles in the early days, the top doubles matches in the latter days. It also happens to be popular, before matches get underway, for a bit of practice.

Waiting for the Federer/Allegro doubles, Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy went through their paces—a little after Federer had done the same. Then on men’s final day, Nadia Petrova was in action before a very appreciative crowd without Center Court tickets.

It’s like a Saturday afternoon in the park; unheralded, bathed in sun, quiet, comfortable, and unhurried.

And for around 10 euros, it's as close to a Federer match as you’ll ever get.

So the third, concluding slide-show focuses on Roger and Rafa in Rome.

If you missed the first article, follow this link.

Or jump to the final slide-show, featuring Federer and Nadal.