Topic: How often has outdoor tournaments been moved indoors?

[gary2414]

Do you know how often outdoor tennis tournaments have been moved inroors or at least in part because of rain? We are not couning the retractable roofs that have been used such as at the AO Open.   I do remember Forest Hills was moved indoors in part on Friday becaue of rain to get all the round of 16 finished on Friday back in May 1989.   Then they were just a day behind and they did not double up to finsh on Sunday.  Instead they finshed on Monday.  They moved the first round of the juniors of the 2003 US Open indoors because of all the rain.  Some qualfying rounds have also been moved indoors so they can at least get them finished on Monday.  In Monte Carlo they do have a spare clay court with a cover that is used in case of rain.  It does not have enough seats so if it rains on Sunday they will go ahead and have the doubles on that court and then try to play the singles final at the same time or postphone it until Monday.  If it still rains on Monday they will play that on the covered court.   I can also remember back in 1980 they had to stop the Indain Wells tournament after the quarterfinals because of rain and stopped the doubles after the round of 16.  The weather was nice at first and then the rain came and several days were washed out completely.  They doulbled up in the occastional dry spells.  First they cancelled the remainer of the doubles and was going to try to get the semis and finals in on Monday but there was more rain.  The nearest indoor courts were in San Bernidino.  Then in Scottsdale the women could not play the final on Sunday or Monday because of rain and it was not moved indoors in 2000.  The last doubles semifnal also had to be stopped in the middle on Saturday night.  Then there was a grass court tournament in England back in about 2000 in which they could not play the semis of finals because of rain.  They were going to finish on Sunday but after two points of the semifinals they decided the grass were simply to wet to continue.  They probably did not have the fast on and off tarps you see at Wimbledon.  Also the may have pressed thier luck and tried to play in a light drizzle on Saturday just to get all the quarter finals finished which they did do and then covered the grass courts but the damage had been done.  A tournament in Vermont could not be finished in 1987 on Sunday when rain stopped the final and the doubles were not played.  That rain had already stopped an auto race to the west in Watkins Glen, NY and it was the late starting time because of that auto race on ESPN that caused all the problems.  ESPN wanted to show them both live and requested the late time.  The race did get run on Monday but they dry wather did not get to Vermont fast enough from the west.  ESPN ran an announcement during the auto race the tennis had been cancelled.   Grass courts do have to be covered right away or the damage will be done.  You can play on clay if the rain is not too hard since they do water clay courts down at times.  You cannot play much on hard courts with rain but they never seem to cover them so even if the rain gets very light they may try to begin the drying process.  Also when light rain start to fall the may just keep trying to dry the lines after the players come off just in case the rain lets up so they can get going again.  Also players may continue to warm up during a light rain on a hard court and when the warmup is over they will decided if they can play and if it has stopped raining they will dry the lines while the players chage balls and take off their warmup jacket.

[Tennis4you]

I do not remember any being forced to play indoors.  They announced this summer that they were thinking of putting a retractable roof on at Wimbledon.

There will always be those tournaments which are prone to rain delay...  Always a bummer when it happens at a slam and they show a V Williams match 30 times in one week.

[Arcforce]

...Always a bummer when it happens at a slam and they show a V Williams match 30 times in one week.

I aint complaining    Venus rocks!!

[hummer23mm]

what is really annoying is when epsn shows 1 match per evening, adn even if there is time left on their brodcast, and otehr live matches going on, they show some taped american match.  i hate that, why cant they just show a good qualiy live match with soem up and coming youngsters.  why the hell do we have to watch serena make a fool of herself.  its a pain in the ass.

[Tennis4you]

I like Venus and Serena, do not get me wrong, I think they both rock.  They need a swift kick in the a$$, but they both rock.  But like Hummer said, show a quality match.  I do not need to see Venus spank someone 6-0, 6-3 or struggle against a piss poor player and watch it every day due to a rain delay.

[kungpaobenji27]

USA and TNT (when they aired Wimbledon) were not like that.  That's mainly the producers of ESPN who can't get anything right.  Even if you watch sportscenter now for highlights, they'll have analysts talk nonsense for 20 minutes before the first highlights of an eventful day in sports is aired.

[gary2414]

When TNT had Wimbledon it was from 2000-2.  The first two years coverage started at a later time and then in 2002 it started when play started so you got to see more live matches.   In the first two years they would always come on live and show what was in progress.  Then when play was over they showed what was played before they came on the air.   When they came on when play started they would still repeat the first match of the day.  Also they would record a match from another court that they could show during a rain delay.  Also TNT was a two feed network and the Wimbledon broadcasts would be fed three hours later on the Western feed rather than live.  That would help to eliminate the problems of very early telecasts such as 4:00 AM on the West Coast.  However may cable system in Mesa, Arizona got the East Coast TNT feed so I got them at 4:00 AM.  ESPN has only one feed.  Also Wimbledon is easier for US TV because play starts at 7:00 EDT on the outher courts and 8:00 AM EDT on the show courts unless rain backs things up. When things got backed up last year because of all the rain many matches started earlier and that is why you tended to see more taped matches. When TNT had Wimbledon the weather tended to be dry the first week with more rain the second week such as in 2002.  The French Open starts at 5:00 AM EDT and ESPN comes on at 8:00 AM EDT.