This weekend I went to the Davis Cup in Amsterdam. For people who don't know what the Davis Cup is, it's a tennis competition between countries. This weekend the Dutch team had to play the Russian team. Holland had a disadvantage, because our top players were injured, so they couldn't play and the Russian team only had players who are in the top 50 of the world.
So on paper our changes weren't very good. Nevertheless, these matches were in Holland, so the Dutch team had a lot of supporters on their side. I went there with 45 student of the tennis club from Enschede (TC Ludica). In total there were around 600 students who cheered for our men.
But on Friday we left Enschede around 9 am, because the first match started at 12 o'clock. On Friday there were 2 singles, the first match was between D.TURSUNOV (RUS) and R.SLUITER (NED), which we lost, but this was a really nice match. In this match, 3 out of 4 sets were decided with a tie-break.
The second single was between N.DAVYDENKO (RUS) and M.VAN GEMERDEN (NED). Normally Davydenko wouldn't have many problems with Van Gemerden, but Van Gemerden played one of his best games ever. Unfortunately he still lost... So after day one Russia led with 2-0 :ó(. But the atmosphere among the supporters was really great!!! This is something completely different then a normal tennis tournament...
The second day there was one double to play, namely:
I.ANDREEV / M.YOUZHNY (RUS) vs. R.SLUITER / J.VAN LOTTUM (NED).
Again this was a very nice match to see, but unfortunately we also lost this match and the entire meeting with Russia. But there was still one day of tennis to go, so the next day we still had to be there!!! But today we got a big compliment from Andreev:
“What we miss are fans like the Dutch have,” said Andreev, who may have taken some diplomacy classes from his captain. “Tennis is getting ever more popular in Russia, but the support the Dutch guys got from their crowd is something else. Even when they were losing, the crowd kept going. I've never seen that before.”*
The matches on Sunday were also great, unfortunately we lost every one of them, so we lost the meeting with 5-0 in matches. But every match was really great!!! Actually almost every match could have gone to them, but also to us. Unfortunately they all went to them :ó(. On Sunday we also got a great compliment from Raemon Sluiter:
On Sunday, the dead rubbers made for good entertainment for a boozy crowd who would cheer at anything, Sluiter said. “If you tell them ‘Guys, thanks for the support even though we already lost the tie,’ they go nuts and yell. If you tell them, ‘Guys, you are idiots because you are still cheering even though we are losing and these matches don't matter anymore,’ they go nuts and yell anyway. Then you might say, ‘Guys, I'm serious,’ and they go nuts again. So, yes, they're a great crowd."*
I don't have the pictures yet, so there will be pictures from this weekend on my website soon!!!
* from http://www.daviscup.com