Triple Bagels

I was watching a very one-sided match on the first day of the French Open tennis tournament yesterday. Robin Soderling was thrashing a French qualifier and was up 6-0, 3-0. The thought crossed my mind if I was watching a triple-bagel in the making. Soderling eventually dropped four games before walking away with a convincing win, but the triple-bagel stayed in my mind.

Being bageled in a tennis match is to lose a set 6-0. I first heard the term being used several years ago by one of the famous Bryan brothers while he was a commentator during a US open. A double bagel is a 6-0, 6-0 win while a triple bagel is used to describe a 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 result. I remember watching a French open final a couple of decades ago, where Steffi Graf had blanked Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0.

In the fiercely competitive world of men's professional tennis, a triple-bagel has to be an extremely rare result, particularly at a Grand Slam event. Sure enough, when I googled for instances of triple bagels at a Grand Slam event, I found that there have been only 5 such instances in the open era. The list can be found at http://www.tennis28.com/slams/shortest_matches.html. Nikola Spear, Karel Novacek, Stefan Edberg, Ivan Lendl, and Sergi Bruguera are the men to have finished on the winning side of these remarkable performances.

While the Steffi Graf double-bagel over Natalia Zvereva in the French Open final is well documented, the closest a man has come to a triple bagel in a Grand Slam final is Jimmy Connors, who won 6-1, 6-0, 6-1 in the 1974 US Open final. Even more amazing is who he beat in that match - Ken Rosewall!

Who cares for the cricket fan in India?

When the Pune franchise for the Indian Premier League was announced recently, I felt a chill go up my spine. The chill was a result of the memories of my visit to the Nehru Stadium in Pune several years ago to watch a one day international cricket match between India and Australia. The bad feeling had nothing to do with the result of the match, which was won by Australia in a canter, thanks to a magnificient Mark Waugh hundred. The chill originated from how shabbily the paying cricket public was treated at the stadium that day.

Cricket is big in India, which is without any doubt the commercial hub of world cricket. At the root of this tremendous commercial success of cricket in India is the huge fan following enjoyed by the sport. Over the years this fan following has been exploited brilliantly by the BCCI and the media and they have managed to squeeze just about every rupee from the sport. And then the IPL came along and made this money-making machine an order of magnitude bigger. However somewhere the paying cricket fan at the stadiums has been forgotten. Which brings me back to my experience at the Nehru Stadium in Pune.

I had purchased an expensive ticket that day, and fully expected to have a great view of proceedings. When I entered the enclosure in the stadium it was a shock. Makeshift chairs were lined up in the enclosure. We were going to watch the game from the point/straight midwicket area - not the greatest of views. I was told that most of the prime seats were given away to MCA/BCCI and other officials. Our enclosure had one small entrance only which allowed maybe 2-3 people to pass through at one time. I shuddered to think what would happen if there was an emergency and people had to be evacuated - a stampede at the narrow gate was the most likely scenario.

And here is the clincher. At some point in time during the match I needed to go to the washroom. When I made my way outside, and found a run down part of the building that housed the washrooms, to my horror the place had a big padlock on the door. The washrooms were under maintenance! When I asked one of the stadium guards where the other washrooms were, he told me that my only option was to go to the street outside to relieve myself! This was the state of affairs at an international match being played in a country that is the commercial hub of the sport. Even though we now have some modern stadia like the one at Mohali, I suspect that the above state of affairs still exists at most cricket venues in the country.

I promised myself that winter morning that I will never again go to a venue to watch a cricket match in India again.

And that brings me back to the new Pune IPL franchise. There is a new cricket stadium being built outside Pune that is likely to be used for the home games of the franchise. I know it may be too much to ask, but do hope that the paying public is at the top of the stakeholder list for the stadium.