Football and tennis are trying out new methods to lessen the reliance of human presence inside sports venues. Organsiers in Europe, Asia and even in America are exhibiting great improvisation in conducting sports events. Just a week after Bundesliga brought sports delight with the resumption of the German football league, a few players in the US helped fans to witness some much-needed action on a tennis court.
Women players this week gathered for the UTR Pro Match Series in West Palm Beach, Fla, hitting fierce forehands and crushing volleys in matches that have been keenly watched by fans in the US and rest of the world. With a few tweaks in rules, watching live tennis was fun again. Marked balls to identify which ones to be used for serve and approval of drones to televise the matches were used by the organizers to rely less on human assistance during games.
The noise of drones hovering over courts are the new normal, according to fans. Joining Danielle Collins, a former Australian Open semi-finalist, in the four-woman field were world No. 19 Alison Riske, 2019 Roland Garros semi-finalist Amanda Anisimova and Australian No. 2 player Ajla Tomljanovic. Engaging rallies were restricted to players winning a set with only four games.
Safety was a priority as players were checked for high temperatures throughout the series that also conducted for male players a week earlier. With ATP Tour and WTA Tour tournaments now blocked until late July, this minor league tennis was a welcome relief for sports fans. Move across to Europe and ‘new normal’ on another sports event saw 13,000 cutouts filled the stands on Saturday when Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach hosted Bayer Leverkusen. A similar tactic was used at baseball and football games played in South Korea earlier this month.
Though some German fans were not too pleased with cutouts taking the place of real supporters, thousands spent a small amount of $20.70 to have their photos turned into cutouts and placed at the stadium.
A news report said Gladbach fans took pictures at home - either in their team jersey or scarf - and paid €19 to be ‘placed at the stadium’. Clearly fan cutouts - like the marked balls in tennis - will be the ‘new normal’ at sports events for some more months to come. Some may approve the idea and many would say the mundane tricks won’t work, but sports activity is limping its way to some kind of normalcy.
