Chennai Open

A evening out at the Chennai Open (tennis) a few days ago watching Cilic and Marcel was quite a lot of fun. This is my second trip in the past few years and am I pleasantly surprised. The price of three tickets was less that what I would pay for one ticket for an IPL match -- yeah!
There is no fencing, so one gets to experience the match much more than in a caged in atmosphere at a cricket match.
The weather was pleasant (dare I say cool)? Parking, food etc. was much better organized that at Chepauk (though I guess, the number of people attending a tennis match is much lesser than a cricket match) and it looked like there were no mosquitoes in Nungambakkam!

However there were no tickets to be had for the weekend and tickets cannot be bought online, nor can daily tickets be bought a day in advance, making it tough to buy the tickets and requires detailed planning to watch a day of tennis!

A couple of years ago when Nadal came to the tournament, I foolishly assumed that one could walk in and get tickets for the weekend but none were to be had. But looking at the coverage this year, the stadium was not full though there were no tickets to be had for the weekend. So if the same had happened a few years ago, I would be very, very mad of being deprived of watching a player of Nadal's calibre, only because people had tickets but failed to attend!

There are lots of kids outside the court wanting tickets, so I wish the sponsors would give free tickets to schools nearby. With a general lack of interest in sports, I wonder why we spend crores on hosting CWG?

PS: Even DD sports did not cover this event during the week!