MELBOURNE, Australia – For about the past two decades, the analytic crowd has been promoting the idea that sport is essentially math, that what unfolds on the playing field is predictable and understandable when viewed through a good algorithm. At times, that crowd was even right. And in many ways, the pandemic sports environment was an analytics enthusiast’s dream, an opportunity for games to unfold in a lab, free from the noise, both literally and figuratively, that can turn an expected outcome into a pretty mess.
Now, almost a year after the coronavirus pandemic, we really know that the roar of the crowd is just as important to sports as a ball or a net. The artificial crowd noise that has funneled into Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL, both for those in the stadiums and arenas and for people watching at home, is a horrible facsimile that makes the spectator-free games not feel that way. sports all the way. What actors call the ‘fourth wall’ – the metaphorical barrier between performers and spectators – does not exist in sports. An audience’s passion can seemingly help make comebacks. His disdain can also stifle someone.
For five glorious days at the 2021 Australian Open, I got to experience that noise again, as government officials allowed up to 30,000 fans, about 50 percent 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 every observation, however passive, changes an outcome – even in a crowd of tennis fans at half capacity. Sport felt like sport again.
Then on Friday, the coronavirus did what it has been doing relentlessly for the past 11 months: putting an end to the party. A recent outbreak was what much of the world would consider a nuisance. But in Australia, which managed the pandemic more effectively than any other major economy, it qualified as critical mass.
The cluster of coronavirus cases grew to more than a dozen, and the state government of Victoria, where Melbourne is, declared a five-day “snap lockdown” starting at midnight on Friday.
Everyone, except those considered essential workers, must stay at home, although two hours of outdoor exercise and one hour to go to the grocery store or pharmacy are allowed. Players and people considered essential in running the Australian Open are allowed into Melbourne Park. Spectators will unfortunately have to stay away until perhaps the singles semi-finals, which are scheduled to start on Thursday.
“The players will compete in a bubble that is not much different from what they have been doing all year,” said Craig Tiley, the CEO of Tennis Australia, which organizes the tournament.
Nobody is happy with it.
“It was really nice to have the crowd back, especially here,” said Serena Williams after beating Anastasia Potapova in straight sets on Friday in the third round. ‘But you know what, at the end of the day we have to do what’s best. Hopefully it will be okay. “
I’m here to tell you it won’t happen. After what I’ve seen for the first five days, it gets awful, without the essential dynamics that make sport the ultimate in improvisational theater.
Nick Kyrgios, the tennis antihero everywhere except Australia, where he’s beloved, drove fans to a miracle on Wednesday night. He saved two match points in the fourth set against Ugo Humbert, the upcoming 22-year-old Frenchman. Then he beat Humbert in the fifth set in front of an explosive crowd that his hometown hero never gave up.
Kyrgios is the rare tennis player to bring in rugby fans. They shouted their heads off to keep Kyrgios alive and Humbert, the No. 29 seed, to the very last point.
“Half full and it felt like it was a packed stadium,” said Kyrgios. “I got goosebumps towards the end.”
Humbert lost those two match points, even though he served. He heard the fireworks from the seats a few feet away. As he watched Kyrgios both encourage it and take it all in, his eyes seemed to fill with fear. There was one more set to play, but the audience wouldn’t let Humbert escape alive.
It’s not hard to say that Humbert easily wins that match on a quiet track.
Kyrgios and his team were back on Friday night when he took on Dominic Thiem of Austria, the reigning champion of the United States Open. The roar started when Kyrgios Thiem broke down in the first match. As the crowd roared, Kyrgios waved his arms and slapped his ears, signaling to fans that if he had a chance against the machine-like No. 3 seed, it was them.
And so began more than three hours of interactive drama, with all the chair banging, taunting and fisting that it takes for someone who’s played barely a year to stay competitive with one of the best players in the world. As the match stretched to the fifth set and past 10:30 pm, strange clock-watching started as fans were supposed to be home observing the lockdown by midnight.
In the end it wasn’t enough as Thiem was victorious in five sets, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, but it’s hard to believe it would have been without it. “It’s not the same sport without the crowd,” said Kyrgios.
So here’s a big revelation from the past week: all those top athletes who have always insisted they’re so trapped they can’t hear the crowd? It seems pretty obvious they lied.
Here was Novak Djokovic, who has won this championship eight times. He has described Rod Laver Arena as his backyard. Recently, he was getting ready to play a game when a group of women with a Serbian flag got up and serenaded him with the tune “Ole-Ole”, culminating in: “Novak Djokovic is hot, hot, hot! “
Djokovic gave up playing cool. He stepped back from the field, began to giggle, then shook his head to regain his attention.
Here was Ajla Tomljanovic from Australia, trying to serve out the third set for what would have been probably the biggest win of her career, an upset of second seed Simona Halep. She faced a crowd in the hometown that carried her all night, but could not bring her to victory.
“I felt that wave of people just cheering for you,” said Tomlyanovich, her voice cracking after the loss. “I’m afraid to say it, but it could be the highlight of the year with the atmosphere and the audience.”
She’s not alone. I don’t know what more I fear at the end of this assignment – the last freezing month of a Northeast winter, or the largely empty version of sports that sparked the pandemic.
It’s a thing, yes, but it’s not a sport.