MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Nobody actually wished to maneuver the Miami Open 18 miles north from the idyll setting of Key Biscayne to a suburban N.F.L. stadium and its car parking zone.
Not match organizers, or gamers, or county officers, or longtime followers. They so cherished the Key Biscayne location that they tolerated the visitors from downtown Miami throughout the Rickenbacker Causeway and confines so cramped at Crandon Park that gamers generally stretched and warmed up on the stadium’s concourse.
Trekking throughout the crystal waters of Biscayne Bay made a day at these old-school grounds really feel like a mini trip to tennis Shangri-La, with the coastal breezes by way of the coconut palms and dense vegetation easing the South Florida humidity. For a lot of, a tennis match, even one as necessary because the Miami Open, is much less a sporting occasion than a novel method to expertise one of the best of what a area has to supply, whether or not it’s the seascapes past Monte Carlo Nation Membership, or the desert mountain views of Indian Wells, Calif.
However Crandon Park badly wanted an improve. And whereas I.M.G., the sports activities and leisure conglomerate that owns the match, was prepared to spend some $50 million to renovate the primary stadium, which seated roughly 13,000 spectators, and assemble three new everlasting stadiums with greater than 10,000 seats mixed, native opposition arose within the type of Bruce Matheson.
Matheson’s household had donated the land for Crandon Park to Dade County in 1940 underneath phrases that didn’t embrace non-public enterprise. A mediated settlement in 1992 allowed for one stadium, however he drew the road at three extra, returned to court docket and received, stopping any enlargement.
With few choices in South Florida, I.M.G. reduce a cope with Stephen Ross, the proprietor of the Dolphins. He agreed to wedge a short lived tennis area within the nook of Laborious Rock Stadium every March and construct a everlasting grandstand, together with greater than two dozen different courts, in his car parking zone.
It was the polar reverse of Crandon Park allure, with its bandbox stadium that felt like a tennis model of a beloved nightclub. Roger Federer was not completely satisfied.
“Proper now it doesn’t really feel nice to maneuver away from Key Biscayne to be sincere,” he stated throughout the match’s closing 12 months on the seaside in 2018.
5 years later, Stefanos Tsitsipas, the Greek star, is amongst these nonetheless pining for the previous neighborhood and adjusting to the brand new setup — a stadium-within-a-stadium for the primary court docket, a tennis advanced MacGyvered into a parking lot. There could be a “don’t lookup” high quality to all of it, lest the vacancy of the soccer stadium or the development for a coming F1 race come into sight.
“It’s one of many only a few tournaments of the 12 months that I might say is soulless,” Tsitsipas stated after he misplaced to Karen Khachanov of Russia within the spherical of 16. “It has zero vibe, zero power.”
Tsitsipas, who has by no means made it previous the quarterfinals right here, stated he loves Miami as a tennis vacation spot however that he believes that tennis tournaments ought to happen in venues the place gamers and followers can join with the historical past of the game. “I guess any participant would nonetheless select to be on Key Biscayne,” he stated.
Not everybody. Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 1 and defending champion, is a serious fan of the brand new location.
“A tennis court docket is all the time the identical measurement,” Alcaraz stated after beating Tommy Paul in straight units on Tuesday. “I really feel nice right here.”
The expanded grounds and simpler entry to residents north and west of Miami allowed attendance to develop to a report 388,734 in 2019, 62,603 greater than the Key Biscayne report. The match is prone to break that report this 12 months. Joshua Ripple, I.M.G.’s senior vice chairman for tennis occasions, stated the match is financially much more profitable on the new web site and can provide gamers a office crammed with facilities.
“It was extra about the place you had been going, how cool is the city, and the place can me and my mates exit to eat,” he stated. Now, he stated, it’s about a lot of observe courts, loads of balls, good meals on web site, a giant health club and first rate transportation.
At Laborious Rock, I.M.G. can promote 50 lush company suites as an alternative of 25 at Key Biscayne, and the 75-acre footprint, in contrast with 32 acres in Crandon Park, has allowed for 100,000 sq. toes of pop-up retail and pageant area. Mark Shapiro, the president of I.M.G.’s mother or father firm, Endeavor Co., referred to as it “a day social gathering” minus the pool.
James Blake, the previous professional who has been the match’s director since 2018, stated he now has extra alternatives to say sure to participant requests. On-site ice baths. Personal therapeutic massage rooms. Personal suites for the highest eight gamers and defending champions. A sprawling restoration room. Shaded seating for gamers and their entourages on the soccer discipline, plus corn gap and spike ball. Even bathe heads excessive sufficient to accommodate N.F.L. linemen — and tall tennis gamers like Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev.
It beats filling buckets from the resort ice machine to replenish the bathtub within the room lengthy after a match. Or a participant eating space with out sufficient seats.
“There may be room to develop right here,” Blake stated. “It felt like in the event you put yet one more particular person at Crandon Park, it was going to be Armageddon.”
And but, Crandon Park nonetheless has its pull.
Late Wednesday morning, Jorge Fernandez, the daddy of the U.S. Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, was loading up a automotive after a observe session along with his different daughter, Bianca, who can also be attempting to make it as a professional, on their favourite courts at Crandon Park, a world away from the motion at Laborious Rock Stadium.
“No comparability,” he stated, when requested in regards to the previous and the brand new match websites. “You bought the seaside, you bought the golf course, you’re near downtown.”
Contained in the previous Crandon Park stadium, the place Federer and Rafael Nadal performed their first match in 2004 (Rafa received) two middle-aged locals had been having a recreation. Federer and Nadal they weren’t — and that didn’t matter one bit.