Suppose someone had never been to a tennis tournament and happened to stop by the MTTC Iphitos facility on Friday, they would be amazed at what spectators in this sport look like. Some were in down coats the length of sleeping bags, heads were sticking out of the top, and the red hats gave the impression of sitting hot dogs. Others didn’t win any beauty awards either, such as those visitors who wore foil-like wrappings like scientists in the laboratory. In some places, thermal blankets that people had brought with them onto Center Court were shining. Did you want to head to the Arctic Circle later?
The citizens of Munich who are interested in tennis, of whom there are quite a few, were of course not surprised at anything. The spectators on the edge of the English Garden are professionals. They know what to expect. Because just as you can marvel at the carillon in the town hall on Marienplatz every day and the Wallner Ludwig at the Großmarkthalle has the best white sausages, the annual BMW Open also has bad weather.
This week was no exception, there was even wonderfully bad weather, which is why Patrik Kühnen, the long-time tournament director, said with a smile: “We can still rightly say: We have the toughest clay court tournament in the world.” This beautiful advertising slogan, born out of necessity to make the best of the often capricious weather, has existed since 2016; At that time, the images of former US Open winner Juan Martín del Potro training in snowstorms went around the tennis world.
The tournament’s groundskeepers regularly earn top honors
This time the climate has been crazy since the start of the tournament last Saturday. When the first matches of the qualifying competition began, the sun was glowing like it was summer. Then the temperature dropped until it snowed. In fact, it was a miracle that most games ended on the calendar day on which they began. (Jan-Lennard Struff’s quarter-final against Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime was canceled on Friday evening when the score was 7:5, 3:1, from the German’s point of view, due to darkness.) The tournament groundskeepers regularly earn the highest awards anyway. The situation didn’t improve on Friday, the day of the quarter-finals, which was accompanied by persistent, disgusting drizzle.
Taylor Fritz, the 26-year-old from sunny California, was the first to go to the red clay pitch with Brit Jack Draper. When the American won 4:6, 6:3, 7:6 (1) after a high-class duel over 2:16 hours, he expressed his surprise at the weather. “The conditions were harsh, it was rainy, cold, windy.” He thought for a moment. Had he forgotten something? “It was hailing,” he remembered. Correct answer.
The capricious weather really lived up to its name; once it even happened that the world number 15. in the sunshine – and ended the same rally in a sudden drizzle. Fritz said with justifiable pride: “I fought through it, I had a really good attitude, I really wanted to win.” As a reward, he will be in the semi-finals of the tournament for the second time this Saturday. Last year he was defeated in this round by the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp.
Alexander Zverev revealed a completely different mood. The world number five from Hamburg, who lives in Monte Carlo, was next and had to fend off two opponents. It became clear early on that it wasn’t just the Chilean Cristian Garín who was causing him problems, but also Richard Haigh from England. Zverev, who had triumphed in Munich in 2017 and 2018 and was confident after his opening win against the Austrian Jurij Rodionov that he could be in contention for the title again, first struggled with his game, then with referee Haigh, then with both. After his 4:6, 4:6 defeat against Garín, the world number 106, who won the title in Munich in 2019, the weather even became a scapegoat.
“I try to play my game, whether it’s sunny or raining”: Cristian Garín didn’t struggle with the conditions.
(Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty)
“I can’t win the tournament in such conditions. That’s just a fact,” Zverev clarified and explained what he meant: “Every single thing that I normally do well with my tennis is simply taken away from me. My My serve is taken away from me. My forehand, which jumps relatively high, is taken away from me. My backhand, which goes through the court and is therefore causing problems for my opponent, is taken away from me. That means: I have no weapons with which I can can win.” But Garín had proven that it wasn’t completely impossible to show good tennis even in typical BMW Open weather, who stated matter-of-factly after his victory: “I try to play my game, whether it’s sunny or raining. I try to play my game, to be aggressive and focused.” Holger Rune, 20, from Denmark is also in the semi-finals. The BMW Open winner of the past two years defeated the Swiss Marc-Andrea Huesler 6:4, 7:6 (3).
For Zverev, who turns 27 on Saturday, things now continue at the Masters tournament in Madrid, where he should at least find a climate that is more comfortable for him and he believes he has chances of winning the title again in Spain. Very different from the future BMW Open, as he predicted: “I love Munich, but I’ll put it this way: If we play in four degrees and rain and wind in the next few years, I would assume that I would win the tournament If it’s 25 degrees and sunny like last week, then yes.” The toughest clay court tournament in the world has apparently found a new victim.