Tennis in a Qatar Sandstorm

This week is the WTA Qatar Total Open tennis tournament, here in Doha. It is a women's tennis tournament with a large purse, therefore many of the world's top ranked tennis players are here. Yesterday seemed like a good day to attend, as many of the top women had centre court matches.

Trying to figure out how to obtain tickets was interesting (and a long story unto itself) but after some confusion and misdirection I figured out that the tickets are free(!) and obtained by going directly to the on-site box office. I arrived at the downtown box office well before it opened, so I decided to stroll to the waterfront. First thing I noticed was that there were no other pedestrians around. Anywhere. Lots of cars though. After a few minutes of walking I understood why no one else was out & about -- steady 25 mph winds (with stronger gusts) through a desert country stir up a sandstorm with a "sandblast" effect on exposed skin. I know that people pay a lot of money to have a cosmetic procedure called microdermabrasion, to remove dead skin cells and leave skin looking youthful & glowing. Walk around Qatar in a sandstorm and you get pelted with fine sand crystals for free! (Not so sure about the "youthful & glowing" part...it's more like, "Ow, ow, there's sand in my eye".) A scene from my stroll:
It is difficult to convey in photos the strength of the wind and the amount of fine sand in the air, but it was gusty, and dusty.

There is a lot of construction in Qatar. Not nearly like Dubai, but impressive nonetheless:

Doha has submitted a bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. It's hard to imagine that they'd truly be competitive, given the size of the city, but you never know. They certainly have the money to build the venues, and they did host the 2006 Asian Games.


I found it interesting that the crosswalk signs here show pedestrians in robes:

I finally made it to the tournament -- my first ever professional tennis event. The wind made it rough going -- this morning's Qatar newspaper says, "Blustery winds reaching a bothersome speed of 37 kms caught everybody's attention in Doha yesterday, especially that of Svetlana Kuznetsova. In her second-round clash at the Khalifa Tennis Complex yesterday, the Russian overcame a tough opponent in Nathalie Dechy of France and extemely testing playing conditions -- worsened by flying dust -- to reach the third round of the Qatar Open. 'I have never, never, never played in such tough conditions,' Kuznetsova said after her match."
That's Svetlana Kuznetsova, a finalist in last year's US Open, above. You can see the flags atop centre court straight out in the winds. Not a lot of spectators at this early match, but the place filled up for matches featuring top seed Ana Ivanovic (in blue), and recent Australian Open champ Maria Sharapova (in pink).

Venus Williams was playing in the late match, and while I wanted to see her play, after nearly 5 hours of tennis in a sandstorm I'd had enough.