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The heat takes some getting used to, say players

Kunal Diwan

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

PACKING A PUNCH: Rainer Schuettler pulled off his t-shirt on court and displayed just what it was that enabled him compete with players 10 years his junior on the circuit.

CHENNAI: Ivan Lendl had a very simple explanation for his usually successful outings at the Australian Open. While most guys were still in the throes of the festive season, Lendl, instead, decided to grind it out on court well before the action started at the erstwhile Flinders Park.

The Chennai Open occupies that crucial place in the tennis calendar when most players are still sitting around with undigested Christmas cookies in their tummy and the spirit of Yuletide in their veins.

“It’s never easy coming back to play after a few weeks off. The first tournament of the year is always a dicey thing,” said Stanislas Wawrinka at the SDAT Stadium here on Sunday.

On his first trip to Chennai, the perennial Swiss bridesmaid held that with just about a couple of weeks to go for the Australian Open, the Chennai tournament was pivotal to the serious tennis player’s overall plan of action. After an off-season spent consuming mainstream fare by U2 and Coldplay, and taking in endless episodes of Prison Break, Wawrinka said he wasn’t too bothered about the draw. His mantra for success was to “never look at the draw, but look at yourself and hope for the best”.

“I am jet-lagged and the heat also takes some getting used to,” he added.

Heat grounds Moya

Wawrinka wasn’t the only one suffering from heat-related issues. Dark, brooding and heat-incapacitated, Carlos Moya would have gladly traded places with the crows that hopped through the puddles by the East Stand entrance on Sunday afternoon. The handsome former Roland Garros champion, who has developed a late-career affinity for Chennai, was hitting balls with German Rainer Schuettler when the heat intervened and cut short his stint on court.

“It’s great to be back here, but it is very hot and (it) takes a few days to acclimatise oneself to the conditions,” said Moya later to a handful of press representatives after his practice session.

The two-time winner of the Chennai Open was introduced by a television anchor as “Chennai’s favourite player” and said that he was “hoping to do well” after a sluggish last season.

While the crows indulged in skinny dipping by the lunching ball-boys — their own, stripped-down version of the Volvo lounge — Schuettler pulled off his t-shirt on court and displayed just what it was that enabled him compete with players 10 years his junior on the circuit. Exhibiting a perfectly toned torso, the Switzerland resident said that the weather was not a primary concern with him since he had been practising under similar conditions in Kenya.

A regular at the Chennai Open for quite a few years now, Schuettler needn’t have despaired over finding crowd support. A lone woman in all-white, who sat high up in the stands for a majority of the German’s practice session, turned out to be a representative of the German Consulate in Chennai.

Consul Brigit Nicole Kuhlman said she had been attending the tournament for the last four years purely as a “tennis fan”, but would extend whatever extraneous support her country’s players required. All that the players had to do, Miss Kuhlmann said, was approach the Consulate for a prompt redress of their travails.

But with several fruitless visits to Chennai under his belt, Schuettler would know that it takes more than a ripped body and zealous fan support to go all the way.

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