Rain on roof drowns out tennis

Associated Press

NEW YORK

When heavy rain began pelting the closed roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Andy Murray couldn’t pick up the usual sounds of a tennis match.

Most importantly, he said, the thwack of a ball coming off his opponent’s racket strings — or his own, for that matter — was completely indiscernible during a 6-4, 6-1, 6-4 second-round victory over Marcel Granollers at the U.S. Open on Thursday.

As it is, the $150 million retractable cover making its tournament debut this week makes the main stadium louder because the structure, even when open, traps the sounds of spectators chatting in the stands.

When it’s shut, as was the case Wednesday because of showers that delayed play on all other courts for hours at a time, the roof amplifies all of that ambient noise.

And when the drops came down early in Murray’s second set, well, it was loud as can be.

“You can’t hear anything, really,” 2012 U.S. Open champion Murray said. “I mean, you could hear the line calls.”

But that was about it.

As Murray and Granollers played, there was a constant din during points, an amalgam of the downpour bouncing off the outside of the roof and the murmur of the crowd bouncing off the inside. From a seat in the 10th row parallel to a baseline, the racket-ball impact was rendered silent by a louder version of what you hear when you hold a seashell to your ear.

It’s not simply that it’s an unfamiliar soundtrack for a Grand Slam match. It affects the competition.

“We use our ears when we play. It’s not just the eyes. (The sound) helps us pick up the speed of the ball, the spin that’s on the ball, how hard someone’s hitting it. If we played with our ears covered or with headphones on, it would be a big advantage if your opponent wasn’t wearing them,” Murray explained. “It’s tricky. You can still do it, but it’s harder, for sure.”

Granollers offered a similar take.

“We’re not used to playing with that noise. ... I was not feeling like I was hitting the ball right. It was difficult also to concentrate. Tough to play,” Granollers said. “There is more noise with the roof, but, I mean, if it’s not raining, it’s OK. With the rain, it was too much.”

Like Murray, he acknowledged players will need to learn to adjust.

“When it rains, you’re going to get noise,” U.S. Tennis Association Executive Director Gordon Smith said, when asked about the players’ comments about the ruckus.

“We will look at potential ways to attenuate some of the noise going forward. It’s going to be louder than it was. We knew that. And it’s something the players will deal with and the fans will deal with.”