By Matteo Sorcinelli, Year 10
The Geneva Open is a tournament that has taken place every year since 2015 in the Tennis club de Geneve. In the Geneva Open tennis players from all over the world come together and battle it out to see who the best player is. The tournament lasted from Saturday May 14th until Saturday May 21st this year, and included 54 matches.
Players
This year the Geneva Open opened its arms to many great players. Some of the most notable players include Denis Shapavalov, a 23 year old Canadian tennis player who is 16th in the world, and Reilly Opelka, 18th in the world. Although many skilful players participated in the tournament, the top 3 fan favourites were Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev and Johan Nikles.
Casper Ruud is a 23 year old Norwegian tennis player who is currently 8th in the world. He was the second highest ranked player in the Geneva Open and proved his level by winning the Buenos Aires Open back in February. This year, he returned to Geneva to attempt to defend the title he worked so hard to earn last year.
Another big contender in the Geneva Open 2022 is Daniil Medvedev. Medvedev is a 26 year old tennis player who is currently second in the world. He was the best ranked player in the tournament and therefore attracted a lot of attention. Having been injured for most of 2022, Medvedev does not have any titles under his belt in 2022 yet.
Finally, the player who had most of the crowd rooting for him was Johan Nikles. Johan Nikles was born and raised in Geneva, and learnt to play tennis in the very club that hosted the Geneva Open. He is ranked 315th in the world, and although statistically the odds of him winning were very low he definitely had the attention from most of the crowd.
History
The Geneva Open was created and played for the first time in September 1980. It was won by Balázs Taróczy, a Hungarian tennis player. It went on for 11 consecutive years until it was cancelled. The city of Geneva then went for 24 years without hosting a tournament. So, when in 2015 the renown Düsseldorf tournament needed to be transferred to another city, Geneva, the second largest city in a country which had won over 28 grand slams, was the obvious choice. The challenge of making the Geneva Open great again was given to Ion Tiriac and Rainer Schüttler. These two men made all the changes and decisions necessary to organise the tournament. In 2017 their efforts were rewarded with the “Most Improved European Tournament of the Year” award.
Behind the scenes
Even though we spectators don’t realise it, there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes of a tennis tournament. There are many different jobs and roles that are important in creating an efficient tournament. One very good example are referees and line judges. In some cases line judges will have to stay standing up and looking at the line around a tennis court for three hours straight.This is not only very challenging but also very important because one moment of inattention can cause a significant change in the score of the match. Another very important role are ball kids. Being a ball kid is not an easy task. Ball kids have to go through months of preparation in order to learn the appropriate skills needed to pick up the balls as quickly and efficiently as possible. All the ball kids have to be in perfect sync and learn when they should pick up the ball and when they should leave it for someone else. They also have to be concentrated during the whole time as one error, such as dropping a ball on the court, can result in an injury to the player, thus ruining the match. Because these are hard roles and usually don’t pay much, the hosts are always looking for new volunteers, so if you want to help out and get to see pro tennis players up close, be sure to check out the Geneva Open websites next year.
