Satellite
  • Day 133

    Rome Masters 1000

    May 13, 2015 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    One of my dreams of coming travelling was to follow the tennis circuit in Europe. There are many more tournaments on here throughout the year then at home, and it's the reason why I've come to Rome this time.

    Although all the big names are here I've come to see Federer and he plays his first match in the second round tonight. So I am off to the tennis!
    I catch the metro and the bus to the grounds. All around the grounds are these giant marble statues of Gods all looking fierce and powerful. The grounds are really nice. It's a small area, but there are lots of flowers, little sponsor shops set up, eateries all mostly selling pizza, but a few American hotdogs and burgers as well.

    When I arrive Dimitrov Grigor is on his way to losing to an Italian, so the Italians were like 4 rows deep around the stadium. It was a cool stadium. It was set in the ground so you could walk past it and look in. It felt Colosseum like.

    Tonight I see Federer vs Pablo Cuevas and Petra Kvitova vs Karin Knapp, an Italian women. The Italian audience is nothing like I’ve seen at a tennis match before. They are loud, talk through sets, and get up and leave whenever they feel like it. It feels like they all interact with one another, one side will respond to the other side if they yell out, or if they feel someone is being nosiy the stadium will shhh them. It' really interesting and fun.

    The stadium is full for Federer and he wins in 2 sets, although Cuevas is great competition. I then saw that Nick Kyrgios was playing double with Sam Sock from the USA on one of the outside courts, but by the time Federer had finished Nick and Sam had also completed their match and made a awesome come back and fought hard for the final set and win.

    As I wandered around the stadium between the two matches I realised that a number of the sponsors had masses of people standing out the front of them with a TV playing. I realised it was soccer, there must've been a big match on. Soccer seriously rules everything over here, even, apparently, at another sporting event.

    Rome Masters 1000: http://www.internazionalibnlditalia.com/en/l

    Star Wars music for players entrance to court
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