Imagine traveling all the way to China to play tennis in front of almost nobody.  The nearly non-existent crowd for the fourth round match between Gael Monfils and Ivan Ljubicic yesterday on the grandstand court at the Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 tournament was comparable to a high school tennis match on a cold, windy spring day.  There couldn’t have been more than 75 people in the crowd, and other matches I saw earlier in the week, including high-profile night matches such as Rafael Nadal against Tommy Robredo, seem to be poorly attended.

I shouldn’t complain, though.  It has been great to get up this week and see matches live on the Tennis Channel, and hear the nondescript approach of the low-key announcers (One, I believe, is Robbie Koenig, and not sure of the other’s name — Jason Goodall, perhaps, or Doug Adler?  It’s hard to tell — they never draw attention to themselves, unlike the blabbering American announcers John McEnroe, Mary Carillo and Justin Gimelstob.)

The Shanghai tournament is studio tennis at its best.

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