By Randy Walker
@TenniisPublisher
At the US Open, the entertainment in the stadium at Arthur Ashe Stadium is almost as synonymous as the high level of tennis.
The stadium is flooded in loud music, which means that fans dance and sing, while often images of the streams are shown on the huge video boards high above the stadium. Kiss Cams, tennis music videos with match heights, sponsor commercials and tennisivia entertain the short Etsingspann fans while the players are the court during switches.
It is part of the contemporary sporting language experience. But in tennis it was not always the case and it was confronted with a strong opposition when he was initially established.
Take a look back at the entry of August 16, 1994 in my book “On this day in Tennis History” (for sale and download here https://a.co/d/AZ6fja3) When the ATP was experimenting for the first time, music on switches at tennis events. It was not that good, as documented below in a fragment from the book and the mobile app.
On August 16, 1994 …
Andre Agassi, the rebel tennis player who brings the “Rock and Roll Tennis” allotment steel to the sport, shoots the ATP officials and organizers of the Volvo International in New Haven angry with music in the stadium during the pre-US Open Court Tune-up event. With music that shells on overlayings, Loses Agassi to no. 113-ranging Jan Siemerink of the Netherlands 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the Feature Night Match of the first round for 10,220 fans. Agassi spends almost his entire press conference after the game the ATP experiment. “It’s a shame,” says Agassi. “It is a joke. If another tournament does this, I would stop tennis before I would go outside and be a part of it. And that is not an exaggeration. It was crazy to me … It is not only that I was distracted by the music because every athlete has the responsibility to block things.” Agassi continues: “It’s a matter of what they do with the sport. This is a sport. You come here and you are proud of what you do. If these people are not there to watch tennis, they should not come at all.” Agassi complains with chairman of the referee Paolo Pereira about the music early in the match and calls for ATP -Supervisor Gayle Bradshaw to the court to express his displeasure about the musical distraction. However, Agassi is told that the music would not be switched off. After the loss, Agassi regroups its game and forms very quickly and wins the next event that he plays – the US Open.
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