As tennis nostalgia grips Dubai fans

Dubai - This year, incidentally, is the silver anniversary of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship

The UAE, in particular Dubai, has its share of tennis enthusiasts. People like banker Gaurav Mehta who, for fear of seats being sold out, queue up at the box office from 4am onwards (box office opens only at 7am).

This year, incidentally, is the silver anniversary of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship. Also this year, Gaurav's token number, at around 4am was 70 for the Men's quarters and semis of the games set to happen from February 19 to March 4. Last year, at around 4am, it was 150. He's obviously getting better at timing it right. And such is the popularity of the event, that there is always a crowd of people waiting in line even at 4am, chatting over coffee, swapping stories of where they've come from.

Last year, Gaurav's wife, Ritu, remembers that there was a lady aged about 70, who had come from Abu Dhabi, and had brought a chair along so she could wait in line without tiring herself out.

Online sales for Men's Day 5 (Dh500) and Day 6 (Dh700) are now closed. Tickets for Men's Day 5 are available for Dh100 up until March 1.

"A couple of years ago, you could buy tickets (for Men's finals) online," Ritu said. "Now, it's just madness." Gaurav and Ritu are tennis-lovers. The Indian couple have been in Dubai for 12 years. Their boys, aged nine (Sumer Mehta) and seven (Ishir Mehta), even on school nights wake up at 2am to watch the US Open, or any other major tournament, especially if Federer is playing.

Dubai tennis over last 25 years

Different folks who've been here for varying lengths of time have stuff to say.

David Richardson, CEO of the International Cricket Council and South African former cricketer, has been in Dubai for over 10 years. "The Dubai Duty Free Tennis tournament is one of the best things about life in Dubai. Since our arrival in 2005, we've seen up-close the best tennis players in the world, women and men - Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Nadal, the Williams sisters, Sharapova, Justine Henin. And it's amazing how many visitors from South Africa we get each year around tournament time. Because of the cultural diversity, no matter who is playing, support for both players is always guaranteed, making for a terrific atmosphere," he said.

Communications professional Kassandra Panagiotopoulos, with 19 years in Dubai (South African-Greek, grew up here) remembers: "We would buy tickets for Dh40, and the stadium would fill up only towards the late evening. "Everything is a lot stricter now. Before they had wristbands, they would just check your ticket at the entrance." (Which is how, in a 5,000-seater stadium, there would be 7,000 people inside!)

Pakistani national, Zohaib Hussain, is another regular. He's been in Dubai for nine years, and used to cover matches for Ten Sports. Hussain, who now owns a media production company that specialises in sports production, likes that the venue hasn't changed and that at any point, the players are still the biggest names in the game.

Big fans

Ganesh Sundararaju, in media marketing, has sat in every possible space in the area, north side, east side. He talks about "the aura and appeal of the players coming to Dubai," how that's a huge draw for people - many of whom fly in from neighbouring countries (India, GCC).

"Irish Village is very special as is Dubai Open," he said. It has to do with the year 2008 when Ganesh took a colleague to watch a match - in which Roger Federer lost to Andy Murray in the first round, Murray won 6-7 (6-8) 6-3 (6-4). After the match, Ganesh and colleague landed up at the Irish Village. The atmosphere around the stadium was electric - live music, great food, great hospitality, big screens all around. That day was the beginning of something, for in the following year, he married the colleague.

Among the number of delightful anecdotes surrounding the Dubai Open, Janet Small, another long-time Dubai resident, has a particularly good one. She's not too interested in tennis, but her mother and husband are big fans. So, for the last 14 years, Michael (Mike) Small takes his mother-in-law, Shirley Bland - "or she takes me," he says - to watch tennis. She comes down from the UK especially to watch tennis.

Here's Janet's story though: In 2007, Janet took some cats along to the stadium, as she was involved with the shooting of a Swiss Insurance ad with Roger Federer. At the stadium, Federer walked up to her. He's a cat person, so he was interested in talking to the lady with the cat. "He came over and Janet didn't know who he was," Mike says, still amused at the memory. "We got a photo of our son Elliott with Roger and the kitten, and sent it to friends with a line, guess who's moved in next door!"

nivriti@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai