Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

One of the perks of living in Dubai is there is always something interesting happen. It seems like every time I turn around, there is another big sporting event, expo, or concert going on. It’s amazing that I’ve been able to attend as many as I have but what is more impressive is the scale of the events Dubai hosts. Where most big cities have an unintentional hierarchy of events - small-time local bands playing concerts at seedy dive bars all the way up to the big-name artists selling out amphitheaters – Dubai only has the latter. Makes sense. Dubai is all about making money and the international stars are the ones who will do that for you. So, in true Dubai fashion, the local tennis scene skipped over all the amateur nonsense and went straight for the big leagues with the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship.

On a Wednesday after class, Ryan, Jasmine and I piled into a taxi and speed off with the utmost urgency for the stadium. We got there with time to spare, crucial, as the general admission seats were filling up fast. Not long after, Novak Djokovic and Feliciano Lopez were squaring off just a few yards away from our seats. Djokovic’s ranking as the world’s second best did not help him beat Lopez. The match went to full sets (which, for this tourney, was only three for some reason) and featured plenty of unforced errors. Despite this, it was some of the best tennis I’ve seen. I could cite stats and tell you about the advantages each player had over the other but in the end, I’d be at a loss for words to tell you about that elusive quality that makes a good match like this one exciting to watch. By the end of it, most everyone in the stadium was on the edge of their seats, periodically bursting forth with a yelp of joy or flopping back in their seat in agony. When Djokovic finally won the last set, six to four, I exhaled a sigh of relief I didn't realize I’d been holding. A performance like that will live in my memory longer than the match’s duration. The same cannot be said for Federer.

The next match of the evening was between Roger Federer and Marcel Granollers and was difficult to watch. The stadium’s announcer seemed to be conspiring with Federer in tearing down poor Marcel. The assault began before the match even started as the announcer introduced the two men on the court to the crowd. Starting with Granollers, the buttery voice announced his career accomplishments, including the sole professional title he’s won in some inconsequential tournament in Houston that holds the same amount of prestige as a backyard badminton match. Harsh assessment, you say. Well, it’s telling that the reigning King of Clay, Mr. Rafael Nadal, has never even bothered entering this particular clay-surface tournament. Nadal or no, Granollers laid claim to the title in 2008 and has surely been clutching it to his chest ever since.

Federer, on the other hand, has no such problems of inadequacy. Following Granoller’s piddling introduction, the announcer took a deep breath, and began holding forth on Federer’s illustrious career, including his 237 weeks as the world’s number one, 67 professional titles, 22 (ten consecutive) Grand Slam titles, $61 million in career winnings, and a sidenote… something about an Olympic gold medal. If Granollers wasn’t intimidated before, he was now.

I don’t think I need to describe the match. It ended predictably and we rose from our seats, happy with what we’d seen. Once again, Dubai brought us the best in the world, and we were not disappointed.

Mom's Visit

Following the DDC, mom came to visit. For one week, we bumped around the city, going out for meals I’d never get to enjoy on my own.

One of the days mom was here, we headed to Abu Dhabi to visit some friends. The ride there proved interesting as the bus filled up before we could board. An enterprising kid a couple years younger than I approached us and proposed we share a taxi. The idea wasn’t as crazy as it first sounded, the far being reasonable despite Abu Dhabi being more than an hour away. The fourth passenger was Jeniffer, a designer working in Dubai. The four of us set out and within a couple hours, mom and I had arrived at the Gordon’s home. Mrs. Gordon is an artist. However, this is the same way Tolstoy was a writer. You don’t get the full effect of the statement until you see it/experience it for yourself and I’ll leave it at that.

The Gordon’s were kind enough to take us on a full tour of the city. The highlight of the day was the Al-Ghazel Golf Club. As members, the Gordons invited us into the clubhouse for lunch. It was about as far removed from snobby golf as it gets. Think Caddyshack as opposed to Gentleman’s Game. When members weren’t buying each other rounds at the bar (it was midday, mind you) they were razzing each other relentlessly, then bursting into laughter and hoisting their glasses in unison. It was an Irish drinking song incarnate, in the backwaters of the Arabian Peninsula. Adding to the strangeness of it all was the course itself, which was sand. There was not a blade of grass in sight. It works like this: golfers tee off from the box, carefully watch for the puff of sand downrange where their ball has landed, walk towards it, slide a piece of Astroturf underneath it and continue playing. The informality of this kind of play is partly responsible for the informality of the larger club and I loved it.

The rest of the day consisted of visits to the Abu Dhabi Golf Club with its signature falcon-shaped clubhouse (see the picture in my album). Apparently, the design of the building was much contested. The location of the bird’s tail was argued: should it be crapping on the patrons as they arrived at the entrance or when they approached the clubhouse after finishing their round. In the end (pun intended) it was decided to situate it near the parking lot, allowing for a much more majestic view from the front. See the picture in my Facebook album.

The Gordon’s were as hospitable as anyone could be and took us as far as the Emirates Palace. The place is immense, and lavish to boot. Total cost for construction was somewhere north of $3 billion, or the GDP of Fiji. Last year, it was home to the world’s most expensive Christmas tree, valued at $11 million. Rooms are tiled with marble and decorated with gold. The UAE government paid for the whole thing. Mom and I wandered around the place for a while, taking it all in before having dinner in one of the restaurants. Having barbecue on the private waterfront makes you feel like royalty which is the whole idea behind Emirates Palace.

The day concluded with a long taxi ride to Yas Island where I parted ways from mom. I was meeting up with some friends for the Tiësto concert (see review at usdradio.org) and she was headed back to Dubai. We’d meet up the following day for the Train concert at Media City (interview here).

Dubai Desert Classic

Since I have been in Dubai, I have been attending Mass at St. Francis Church in Jebel Ali (you may remember this from the Jebal Ali Free Zone Bus Ride of Death. I’ve mentioned it before). One of my fellow parishioners is Nishanti and she has been kind enough to drive me back to campus following the 8 AM mass on Sundays. This is highly convenient as she works at the Emirates Golf Club which sits literally across the street from school. Sunday being a workday in the Middle East, she goes from mass to work and I go from mass to campus.

As an employee of the golf club, Nishanti was able (and generous enough) to provide me with three passes to the Dubai Desert Classic, one of the region’s premier golfing events and a stop on the European Tour. From February 10^th-13^th, I watched more golf than is healthy for one person.

My partner in crime was Ryan Nees, a Yalie who is studying abroad at AUD, like me. On our first day, we wandered onto the grounds of Emirates Golf Club, past the vendors, viewing area, and straight into the clubhouse.

Wait.

Clubhouse?

Yes, the passes provided to us by Nishanti read “Member Guest” and right below that “Clubhouse”. This meant we had full access to all the lavish amenities of the region’s most distinctive clubhouse and we were sure to take full advantage of it. From inside, we could sit in comfy armchairs and watch the day’s matches proceed on big-screen TV’s but being the ambitious chums that we are, we concluded our brief tour and took to the links.

While we may be ambitious, we are by no means knowledgeable. Between us, Ryan and I could tell you a thing or two about the game of golf but this is only because we immersed ourselves for three straight days in all the hoidy-toidyness golf culture has to offer. On this first day, we were ignorant as gurgling newborns and so we toddled our way over to where we thought we could see grown men hack at miniature orbs with overly phallic clubs. Sure enough, we found a group of these athletes and began following them. As we found out later, we’d chosen a good group to follow: previous champions of the DDC, Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez along with Matteo Mannaserro, the youngest player on the European Tour at age 17.

Doing our best not to reveal our ignorance, Ryan and I quietly followed the group through their last several holes of play, picking up terms, rules, and courtesies as we went. The day ended with dinner at the clubhouse. During, we watched the recap on the big outdoor screen as we happily munched our fried food and sipped our overpriced beers. At some point, I mentioned to Ryan that this Martin Kaymer character everyone was talking about was unknown to me before today. Just then, the screen lit up with the current world rankings. Kaymer was ranked second. My eyes scanned downwards and who was that signing autographs not twenty yards away? Sure enough, Martin Kaymer. Naturally, I put on my fair-weather fan hat and raced over for a signature.

Days two, three, and four were every bit as enjoyable as the first. After the cut was made following Day Two, half the original number of competitors remained, allowing us to really focus on the good golfers. Jimenez was not one of them. Despite being the defending champion, he played terribly. My earlier description of golfers as athletes does not extend to all participants of the sport, particularly Jimenez. With a gut that doubles as a leg warmer and jowls that would make Alan Greenspan jealous, Jimenez is the last person you’d peg as a reigning golf champion. In addition to his frumpy appearance, he displayed a healthy amount of rage, sometimes directing it at the fans, other times at his clubs. In what reminded me of Peter Parker’s transformation into Spiderman, it was as if Jimenez was morphing into John Daly before my very eyes.

However, for some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t help but watch him. Sure we followed Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer but none of them had the same appeal as Jimenez. The guy is like your fat friend who is hilarious without trying. Imagine this token character possessing better than average golf skills and you’ve got a rough approximation of Miguel. Hell, his name is Miguel, close enough to call him Mike or better yet, Fat Mike. When I caught him going into the clubhouse locker room after his last round on the final day, I managed to get an autograph. Up close, he is every bit as crabby looking as he appears from a distance. His signature was the equivalent of a dash on the page, a clear indicator that he’d rather be doing something else. Surely, signing autographs for chuckleheads like me is the last thing most athletes enjoy doing but then again, many men Jimenez’s age (47) have a bumper-sticker that says “I’d Rather Be Golfing”. However, even when he’s golfing, Jimenez looks like he’d rather be someplace else.

Fat Mike finished 40^th. Woods didn’t do much better, barely making the top twenty. The highlight of his play came on the first day during (look out, golf parlance ahead) the final approach when, instead of laying up like everybody else, Woods ambitiously drove past the dogleg, getting eagle on the hole. If you’re golf knowledge is comparable to mine pre-DDC, that means he risked hitting his ball in the water, didn’t, and then got the ball in the hole long before anyone else. Everyone cheered uproariously but most people hadn’t been following Tiger around for the last few holes like we had. If they had been, they would’ve realized that this improbably gamble did little to pad Woods abysmal play from earlier in the day.

The tourney ended with a nice come from behind win by Alvaro Quiros. On the last day, Quiros took advantage of everyone else’s crummy performance and decided to play an unbelievable round of golf, the likes of which would be difficult if not impossible to repeat. In recognition of his win, Quiros took him the tidy sum of $419,000. Not bad for four days work.

Roof Shoot

Over the next few days, I will be posting several new pieces about my activities of late. Expect one post every day for the next week or so.

On February 6^th, I finally managed to make my way to the top of a skyscraper adjacent to campus to do some long exposure photography. Dealing with the guards was a little tricky. It took three separate attempts and conversations with everyone all the way up to the building manager to get someone to unlock the door to the roof but in the end it was worth it.

The grouchy guard responsible for supervising me said nothing on our ride to the 40^th floor. Once there, he tersely told me that I had only ten minutes. Great, I thought. Just enough time to take about three good photos. As it turned out, the “long” exposures I was searching for turned out to only be about fifteen seconds each because of the amount of light available. In my planning, I neglected to account for the fact that I am smack dab in the middle of a giant city and there is no shortage of light floating around.

The view from the top was impressive, but less so than I had imagined. Situated in a funny little nook within an upper tier (we weren’t near the actual ledge of the building) the view was slightly restricted and so photos were long shots or nothing at all. At one point in the shoot, as I stood impatiently, hands on hips, the guard asked for a smoke. A nonsmoker, I repaid his less-than-cheerful demeanor with a Roth family maxim: “Oohgots”, I said. While he had no idea what that meant, he understood that I didn’t have any cigarettes, at least none I wanted to share. Minutes later, I packed up my things, careful not to leave anything behind and I nodded towards the door. Down the elevator we went.

Click here for a link to one of the shots from the roof shoot.