Anyone For Tennis?

I have been to a few professional tennis tournaments around the world but have never been to one quite like the Pattaya Open. It was truly an 'only in Pattaya' kind of a day. As a WTA event, it's on the women's tour, earning the players points and a nice bit of prize money, so we assumed the organisation would be slick and efficient. Of course, we forgot that we were in Pattaya, which runs to its own beat. I had booked tickets online which had been posted to me a week before the event, so we went straight to the court, bypassing the crowd at the ticket desk, and handed our tickets to the usher. Usefully for an international event with spectators of all nationalities, he spoke absolutely no English but we gathered from the grunt and finger pointing back towards the ticket desk that there was something wrong. Slightly irritated now, we navigated our way through the throng of people making their way to the court and stood, like the polite English people we are, at the back of the crowd. There was no form of queue whatsoever and it became increasingly obvious that if we were going to get our tickets sorted out before the match started we were going to have to take a slightly more forceful approach. This is where being taller than pretty much all of the Thais helps considerably. I waved the tickets over their heads and grabbed the attention of the rather fraught looking man behind the desk. He took my tickets, looked at them and aged another few years. Not a good sign.

Five minutes later, our tickets were handed back to me but with different seat numbers written on them in pen. "I upgrade you," I was told. It would seem that our seats had been given to someone else, and, judging by the baying crowd surrounding the desk, we weren't the only ones. Not a good start, but if our seats had been upgraded who was I to complain? Upon reaching our seats, I realised that our 'upgrade' consisted of being a mere one row in front of our original seats. We had also been given seats 30, 31, 32 and 34. Our upgrade was soon turning into a downgrade. Luckily, the man who held the ticket for seat 33 was on his own so happily sat in seat 34.

It soon became clear, as the match got under way, that many people had been given the wrong seats as latecomers hurried to their seats at the change of ends to find someone else in them. Cue mass confusion and more than a few arguments. Given that there was only one point of access to the stand, people were then left standing with nowhere even to perch as the match resumed, which was very off-putting for the players and annoying for the rest of us as we had to crane our necks to see the tennis! A large percentage of those with seat issues were Russian which made a bad situation even worse as they continued to argue when the players were back on court. The poor umpire really had her work cut out for her trying to control the spectators as the security team did absolutely nothing!

We seemed to be sat in Camp Russia. We were surrounded by them, many with Russian flags and all with bellowing voices. The final was between Vera Zvonareva of Russia and Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand and since Pattaya is basically made up of Russians and Thais, there was fierce competition both on and off the court. The Russians cheered and chanted every time Vera won a point, drowning out the poor Thais. One particular incredibly annoying child (whose parents seemed to have disowned him and had sat somewhere else) would chant and cheer after every single point. Tamarine had her own supporters however, notably in the form of a bunch of Thais dressed in national costume, one man wearing a dress, with huge Thai flags, oversized racquets and even musical instruments. It felt at times as though we were at a football match rather than a tennis match, especially when several fat Russians behind us (one sporting a 'Good Guys Go To Heaven, Bad Guys Go To Pattaya' t-shirt) started to shout 'Out!' in the middle of any points in which they felt Vera had been unfairly treated by the linespeople. Not quite the done thing. It did, however, make for rather a carnival atmosphere around the court, not something I've ever felt at Wimbledon!

To be fair, the linespeople were making some rather bad calls. Not only that but they took a distinctively Thai approach, only calling several seconds after the ball had landed. Apparently, there was no rush. The ballkids, too, were extremely relaxed, sauntering over to pick balls up, and sometimes not picking them up at all. The players had to point to a ball on the court on more than one occasion!

Eventually, we just relaxed into it too. There was no point getting frustrated at people having loud conversations mid-point, or answering their mobile phones, as it seemed to just be accepted. This is Thailand and they were doing things in their own unique way!