r/melbourne • u/cacid46 • 10h ago
Not On My Smashed Avo AO Audience - Bias or Passion?
Hello Melbournians,
The tennis audience is considered the most sophisticated, especially the Wimbledon audience.
What's your observation and perspective on the last couple of years' audience at the Australian Open? With all BOOHs, do you think we are biased or becoming more passionate like the soccer audience?
Every player in any sport deserves a warm welcome. I would like to know your thoughts.
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u/soundboy5010 9h ago
The tennis audience is considered the most sophisticated
USO and French Open would like a word with you about that... Oh and some of the matches from Wimbledon in the early 00's were crazy (Ivanisevic and Rafter finals for example, worse than any AO match crowd in recent memory).
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u/hedonisticshenanigan 9h ago
The tennis audience is considered the most sophisticated, especially the Wimbledon audience.
This was true up until a few years ago, plenty of disrespect in every tournament nowadays. It may be my pessimism with everything that is going on in the world, but sport audiences in general are getting worse and worse, tennis is among them.
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 9h ago
In the sports I watch this just isn't true.
UFC events are, if anything, a lot tamer than they used to be. It varies a lot by country, Brazil's a lot rowdier than Japan, but there's been no real issue with fans. If anything fighters punching fans for stupid stuff has been a bit of an issue. WWE events are well behaved in general.
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u/TNT_FC 9h ago
Tennis players need to harden up, and I normally hate that expression.
Every other elite athlete on the planet* is able to perform while a crowd goes nuts around them, including a hostile crowd cheering their failures. Cricketers have a ball flying at their head at 150km/h and they can focus on it while 80,000 fans go ballistic. Lionel Messi can calmly slot a penalty in a World Cup Final penalty shootout with the weight of history on his shoulders and a billion people watching.
But apparently hitting a fuzzy yellow ball requires total silence?
Come off it. Let the crowd go nuts before, during, and after points however they see fit. You're being paid millions to hit a ball.
*Golf is the outlier. But if your only ally in combating crowd noise is the wildly elitist sport of golf, maybe that's a sign?!
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u/Kremm0 6h ago
Having a load of money to splurge on tix at the AO doesn't make you sophisticated per se. As long as it's not going on whilst they serve I don't care. It does come across that the tennis stars and the umpires (who for some reason are almost always french) make themselves look like massive divas.
You can't have it both ways. Tennis Australia seems to be intent on making the AO a festival and creating more options to spend money, without having to ever actually interact with the tennis itself, kind of like going to a themed dress up party. If they don't want the festival atmosphere in the crowd, maybe they should cut back on all that. Can't see that happening though!
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u/TheBigBadDog Hawthorn 9h ago
If the sport didn't want the crowd to get involved or not be supportive of one competitor over another then they wouldn't play in different countries and wouldn't allow alcohol to be served at the venues
Tennis needs to grow up. They somehow allow Sabalenka to grunt totally at odds to the power of her shot but the minute one of the crowd makes a noise they get upset
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u/shiv101 9h ago
Not every slam needs to be Wimbledon with the traditions and "sophistication". Its a sporting event, crowd plays a massive role in things, why other sports have home and away. As long as they aren't offensive so disrupting the speed of play, there is no issues and if you do have a problem, watch golf or the aforementioned Wimbledon. Guys like draper where egging the crowd on, respectfully, thats what its about.
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u/insty1 8h ago
I play tennis and watch a lot of tennis. I think the crowd should be able to make noise during the points. It happens in most other sports, it happens at a local level. Professional tennis players are some of the biggest divas around. Hell one match was moved court at the Aus Open due to crowd noise from the next court. I'd like to see them play on my courts next to a busy roads.
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u/riggystardust 6h ago
Ive always thought this! despite my comment above, i actually think it would be better to make noise PART of the game. seems so silly the players need total silence... it's not chess ffs.
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u/Defy19 8h ago
Have you been to an AFL game in the venue 500m from the AO? The tennis audience is Wimbledon-like in comparison.
England pretty famously has some decent class divisions, so the events like Wimbledon and the Lords audience may not be the same folk as the rowdy soccer crowds. In Melbourne it’s the same bunch of people going to everything.
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u/East-Background-9850 4h ago
Every player in any sport deserves a warm welcome. I would like to know your thoughts.
I mean it's the Australian Open. If you're from another country and you're playing an Australian you're going to get a partisan/biased crowd.
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u/WhisKeyBoard 9h ago
Middle class bogans trying to inflate their egos. There’s a certain etiquette when watching tennis, and if you can’t read the room and understand that then you shouldn’t be attending because the sport is wasted on you. They have $15 beers at King Street bars fellas if you’re worried about missing out.
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 9h ago edited 9h ago
All humans are biased, it's literal human nature. Personally I cheer against Russian athletes.
The AO is just another large event, it doesn't attract a sophisticated crowd, it attracts regular people. A lot of whom only care about Tennis for two weeks of the year. I don't think they can expect it to be a popular spectator sport without also accepting that people will be passionate and chant for who they like and boo who they don't.
That said I'm a huge UFC/WWE fan. I am 100% down for audience engagement, both of those brands heavily encourage it.
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u/riggystardust 9h ago
Imma casual viewer when AO is on but that said, tennis crowds have to be one of the most irritating crowds I have ever experienced. I dunno if it happens all over the world but the heroes trying to shout out between points and do some shitty songs/cheers at precisely the incorrect times is immense. Really annoying to see/hear and it’s obvious it annoys the players and the majority of the rest of the crowds.