The night when the game took a backseat

The crowd cheered at every mistake Harsh Mankad made, not because he made them, but because he was the player who was trailing. In the end, it got to the player, and he admitted defeat 7-6 (4), 6-2.

One cannot, however, blame the crowd for the way they behaved, for by the end of the two celebrity matches, they were pretty much fed up. The matches were ‘sewn up’ to excite the crowd and the only match that did not proceed according to a script, was certainly not the one most appreciated.

At the end of the day, there were many things that the organisers could have done better to make the proceedings more meaningful. They could have started the celebrity matches a little earlier, they could have organised the finals at the start so that the players would have been fresher, more focused and the crowd would not have been this punishing. But it was a night when reason took a backseat and all that really mattered was how to make it into a publicity circus.

Circus it was, and the city does not need many more such ill-managed circuses.