5 reasons why attending a tennis tournament live is better than watching it on TV

5. The feeling of being a part of something monumental

Stanislas Wawrinka doing the cricket stunt, a popular feature of the tournament

The Aircel Chennai Open may only be an ATP 250 tournament, and it may never be able to offer enough appearance fee dough to make the Federers and Nadals of the world participate in it. But that doesn’t stop it from being a larger-than-life, perpetually buzzing phenomenon that is hard to walk away from.

Any professional tennis tournament, big or small, holds a lot of gravitas for the numerous people involved with it – the players, the officials, the organizers, the advertisers, and even the ballkids and security guards. That sense of urgency permeates through to everyone at the venue, even those merely standing by passively. The likes of Stanislas Wawrinka and Benoit Paire may have given this year’s edition of the tournament a nice sheen, but the substance underneath is rock solid anyway.

When you are at the venue, everything assumes a little extra importance, even your routine of walking through the stadium gate. And I think I’ll miss that, more than anything else, now that the Aircel Chennai Open is over.