Clay-court king Rafael Nadal suffered a fake injury, several players “froze” and one match vanished into thin air as the Virtual Madrid Open made its debut on Monday.
With professional tennis tours closed down until the middle of July at the earliest because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an e-sports version of the clay-court event is being staged online.
Thirty-two of the world’s best players have swapped their rackets for PlayStation controllers and courts for sofas to contest the four-day event designed to offer players — and fans — some action during the lockdown.
Nadal during an Instagram chat with Andy Murray last week said that he was a computer game novice, but the Spaniard showed impressive eye-hand coordination to beat young Canadian Denis Shapovalov in his opening round-robin match on a digital representation of Madrid’s Manolo Santana.
However, things did not start well, with Nadal and Shapovalov, shown in small screens below the game action being broadcast live on Facebook Gaming, sitting frustrated as their computer characters were left bobbing around on the baseline as the game appeared to malfunction.
Later, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Fabio Fognini had to hit the reset button before their armchair tussle could begin, with Tsitsipas winning comfortably as Fognini’s strutting computer character threw its racket with relish.
“I’ve not really trained for this because I’ve been cooking and looking after my baby,” Fognini said.
Nadal — a five-time champion of the real Madrid Open that should have been played this week — then pulled out of his exhibition match against YouTube star DjMariio.
The 33-year-old Nadal, who can go toe-to-toe with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer for hours, was said to have tweaked his back.
Compatriot Feliciano Lopez, director of the tournament, which is raising funds to help lower-ranked professionals struggling to stay afloat during the health crisis, later said that it was a joke.
“Guys, I was joking, of course...” Lopez said. “I said Rafael had a back injury from the pressure of playing on the PS4. We might need some sense of humor please.”
The virtual tournament included many of the features of the real tennis world. Endless chat between host Brandon Smith, e-sports tennis pro Lorenzo Choffi — apparently from his bedroom — and a rather nonplussed former Spanish player Alex Corretja.
Online fans moaned about the long gaps between the matches, played on the Tennis World Tour game and each lasting about 15 minutes. The duel between Donna Vekic and Angelique Kerber was lost in cyberspace, presumably because of Wi-Fi issues.
Despite the teething problems caused by players logging on from all over the world, it was an entertaining day.
Kiki Bertens, who last year won the Madrid title, could never have imagined that she would be “defending” her title from her living room.
She put down a jigsaw puzzle to grab the controls and demolish Kerber, who did finally materialize.
“I’ve been practicing so much my hands hurt and my eyes hurt,” said Bertens, who was also wearing full tennis kit. “It’s fun. I’m just glad to put my tennis kit on again.”
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