MELBOURNE, Australia – The analytical crowd has for the past two decades expressed the idea that sport is essentially mathematics, that what takes place on the playing field is predictable and understandable when viewed through a proper algorithm. Sometimes that crowd was even right. And in many ways, the pandemic sports environment was an analytics lover’s dream, a chance for games to unfold in a laboratory, without the noise, literally and figuratively, that could turn an expected outcome into a beautiful mess.
Now, almost a year into the coronavirus pandemic, we really know that the noise of the crowd is just as important to sports as a ball or a net. The artificial crowd noise that Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL have charged, both for those in the stadiums and arenas and for people watching at home, is a terrible facsimile that makes the spectator-free games feel like no other sport. The playwrights called the “fourth wall” – the metaphorical barrier between artists and spectators – do not exist in sport. The passion of a crowd can seemingly help bring about return. Its ridicule can also suffocate.
For five glorious days at the Australian Open in 2021, I experienced the noise again, as government officials allowed up to 30,000 fans, about 50 per cent capacity, to attend the tournament every day. It was both a joy and a revelation to rediscover the power of what quantum physicists call the “observer effect” – the fact that any observation, however passive, changes the outcome – even in a crowd of tennis fans with a half capacity. Sport felt like Sport again.
Then the coronavirus did so relentlessly for the past 11 months on Friday: it shut down the party. A recent outbreak has been a nuisance to most of the world. But in Australia, which managed the pandemic more effectively than any other major economy, it qualified as a critical mass.
The group of coronavirus cases has grown to more than a dozen, and the state government of Victoria, where Melbourne is, has declared a five-day snap lockdown, starting at midnight on Friday.
All except the deemed essential workers should be allowed to stay at home, although two hours of outdoor exercise and one hour of going to the grocery store or pharmacy are allowed. Players and people deemed essential to manage the Australian Open will be admitted to Melbourne Park. Spectators will unfortunately have to stay away until perhaps the singles semi-finals that start on Thursday.
“The players will compete in a bubble that is no different from what they have been doing throughout the year,” said Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley, who organizes the tournament.
No one is happy about it.
“It was really nice to have the crowd back, especially here,” Serena Williams said after beating Anastasia Potapova in the third round on Friday in live sets. ‘But you know what, at the end of the day we have to do what’s best. Hopefully it will work out. ”
I’m here to tell you it will not be. From what I saw during the first five days, it’s going to be awful without the essential dynamics that make sport the best in improvisational theater.
Nick Kyrgios, the tennis antihero everywhere except Australia, where he is much loved, drove the fans to a miracle on Wednesday night. He saved two match points in the fourth set against Ugo Humbert, the emerging 22-year-old Frenchman. He then attacked Humbert in the fifth set in front of an explosive crowd that never gave up his hometown hero.
Kyrgios is the rare tennis player that rugby fans bring in. They screamed their heads off to keep Kyrgios alive and Humbert, the number 29 seed, on the verge to the last point.
“Half full and it felt like it was a full stadium,” Kyrgios said. “I got chicken at the end.”
Humbert lost those two game points, even though he served. He heard the fireworks from the seats a few feet away. As he watches Kyrgios encourage it and suck it all in, his eyes seem to fill with fear. There was another set to play, but the crowd did not want Humbert to come out alive.
It’s not a bit to say that Humbert easily wins the game on a quiet track.
Kyrgios and his crew were up to it again on Friday night when they took on Dominic Thiem of Austria, the reigning US Open champion. The roar started when Kyrgios Thiem broke in the first game. As the crowd rumbles, Kyrgios waves his arms and bulges his ear, signaling to his fans that this is the case if he has any chance against the machine-like number 3 seed.
And so begins three-hour hours of interactive drama, with all the seating, teasing and fist pumping needed for someone who has barely played in a year to stay competitive with one of the best players on the planet. When the match starts in the fifth series and at 22:30, a strange clock starts, because the fans are supposed to be home by midnight and observe the lockout.
In the end, it was not enough, because Thiem prevailed in five sets, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, but it is hard to believe that it would have been close without it. has. “It’s not the same sport without the crowd,” Kyrgios said.
So, here’s one great revelation of the past week: All the star athletes who have always insisted that they be so locked up that they do not hear the crowd? Well, it seems pretty clear that they lied.
Here was Novak Djokovic, who won this championship eight times. He described Rod Laver Arena as his backyard. He was getting ready to play a match the other day, when a group of women with a Serbian flag stood up and serenaded him with the “Ole-Ole” tune, which culminated in: “Novak Djokovic is hot, warm, warm! “
Djokovic gave up trying to play cool. He steps back from the court, starts giggling and then shakes his head to get focus again.
Here was Ajla Tomljanovic from Australia trying to run out the third series for what would probably be the biggest win of her career, an upset from Simona Halep, the No. 2 seed. She was in front of a hometown crowd that carried her all night but would not be able to bring her to a victory.
“I feel the rush of people cheering just for you,” Tomljanovich said, breaking her voice after the loss. “I’m scared to say it, but it could be the highlight of the year with the atmosphere and the crowd.”
She is not the only one. I do not know what I am more afraid of the end of this mission – the last freezing month of a winter in the Northeast, or the largely empty version of sport that caused the pandemic.
It’s something, yes, but it’s not a sport.