Travel Blog

On Key Biscayne Saturday morning, sitting in the long line of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot, I thought: I won’t miss this. The line continued as we inched our way past fields and scrubland. The Miami Open is the only sporting event I’m aware of where the earlier you arrive, the farther away from the stadium you park.

I had not experienced this parking injustice (one that Hard Rock Stadium should eliminate) for a few years, as I had used the media lot. Last week I was told that I would not be able to receive a media pass this year for the first Saturday because Roger Federer was scheduled to play, and the demand was too high. I tried not to hold it against him.

As is my custom, I wandered the outside courts – found Petra Kvitova practicing on a court next to Juan del Potro – but then headed into the stadium for the Agnieszka Radwanska and Simona Halep match. Earlier, climbing the stairs to check the location of my seat, I had peered down at Halep sitting on a couch next to her coach Darren Cahill in the outdoor players’ lounge, which is now visible only from above as a wall was built a few years ago, Trump-style, to block the views of gawking fans.

My seat was two rows from the top. The players far below were still quite visible, as well as the Miami skyline and sailboats out in Biscayne Bay. Here’s where Hard Rock is going to fall far short.

A group of Polish fans one section below were loudly rooting for their countrywoman, so I moved down in their vicinity. Perhaps their cheering helped, as Radwanska won in an upset.

I had to vacate my new seat for the Federer-Kokkinakis match; by the second set the stadium was standing room only. The people who had paid nearly $100 – in some cases more – to watch the number one player in the world witnessed him scatter forehands and lose his number one ranking. And just like that, the Miami Open, in its swan song on the island, lost its marquee draw.

In the evening, there was a tribute to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, with the school’s tennis players gathered on the court. I thought they looked unusually tall until I realized that standing among them were a number of professionals. One of them, Nick Kyrgios, won the first of the night matches. I watched it from a corporate suite a friend had invited me to, directly across the court from the media room. Seeing it reminded me of balmy afternoons sitting there with Bud Collins, the man who had gotten me my first media pass, and his lovely wife Anita. It pleased me to think that Bud would have approved of what I had written in a preview to this year’s Open in City & Shore:

“There is something beautifully apt about a tennis tournament on a subtropical island. Flying balls, swaying palms. A summer game played within a lob of the beach. (Topspin and undertow.) Everyone – players, ball kids, fans – getting good leg tans.”

Except of course for Bud, in his always colorful trousers.