Tennis and etiquette

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Today was a very cool day! The Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 Tennis tournament comes to Shanghai every October and this year we decided we would like to go. We found out that the first day was free, so we went with our friends but sadly Ian had to work. A strange thing about Chinese holidays, Thursday was a national holiday, but this meant that all Chinese businesses and schools had to work today instead. Crazy stuff.

Anyway, we went still and got our free tickets. It was about 45 minutes out of town at the Qizhong Tennis Center and was huge. It was a gorgeous October day, sunny and warm, to the extent that we had to put suncream on as it was so hot. Just so bizarre when we hear stories of cars in England being frosted over in the morning with the cold!

So, we entered the grounds to find no play on Centre Court but we headed for one of the outside courts and watched a great match between Belucci and Ze. It was all our children's first time watching a proper match since they had started their tennis training, so we were teaching them the rules and scoring system. One of the biggest challenges was keeping quiet, especially for the boys. Now, here comes the interesting part. half way through the second match we watched, between Marach and Mayer, a whole busload of Chinese school children arrived storming into the seats. It was a scary thought.

Knowing the Chinese lack of etiquette in meetings, where mobile phones can go off midway through meetings, even the person holding the meeting, and people will quite happily take a telephone call and sit there chatting on their phone in the middle of the meeting, our hearts dropped. We know that the Chinese just do not know when to keep quiet. I have been in parent meetings where parents sit there chatting away and ignoring the person talking. Children are not taught that you are silent and listen when your teacher talks. It is amazing. So, add to this, the fact that tennis is a new sport in China and an unknown etiquette to children. 2 teachers to about 50 children also meant that they spent most of the match chatting and not watching tennis. Now, we all agreed that this was an amazing experience for children to see an international tennis match in person, but rules are rules. We all felt sorry for the players who were definitely exasperated at the lack of respect for quiet during play.

By the 3rd set, our own children had about had enough so we decided to depart, but I know us adults could have sat there watching forever. It was a shame that Roger and Andy were nowhere to be seen, but apparently they couldn't stand the heat in Shanghai!

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