By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Since my days working at the U.S. Tennis Association, I’ve always been one to keep track and look up various records in the sport of tennis. I authored the modern-day U.S. Davis Cup team record book and took over from the great work done for years by sports historian Bill Shannon in updating and enhancing the U.S. Open Record Book. After leaving the USTA in 2005, I stayed in the tennis “record-keeping” business when I became the publisher and editor of “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” book (for sale here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559386/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_0PWpEbEYCGY68)
One tennis record that I have kept an eye on has been the all-time tennis attendance record. This was, of course, broken on February 7, 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa when Roger Federer defeated Rafael Nadal 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in front of 51,954 fans at the Cape Town Stadium.
In November of 2019, Federer and Alexander Zverev played an exhibition match in Mexico City at the Plaza de Toros bullring in front of the crowd of 42,517, which was the previous record. Prior to that, the records were 35,861 fans at the “Battle of Belgium” between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters in Brussels, Belgium in 2010 and, the long-time record of 30,492 fans who watched the famous “Battle of the Sexes” between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 at the Houston Astrodome.
I actually qualify these attendance records in two categories – exhibitions and actual sanctioned matches. All of the above matches are all exhibition matches. When it comes to sanctioned matches – or matches that “count” and are part of either the ATP Tour, WTA Tour, Davis Cup, Fed Cup or the Olympics – the all-time record was set in 2017 during the Davis Cup Final in Lille, France between France and Belgium when 27,448 fans packed the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Three years earlier at the same venue, Roger Federer and Switzerland played against France in Lille when 27,432 fans attended on Sunday, November 23, 2014, which was the previous record.
Prior to that record for a sanctioned match was when 27,200 fans attended the 2004 USA vs. Spain Davis Cup Final in Seville, Spain, featuring Andy Roddick and Team USA against Carlos Moya and Rafael Nadal and Team Spain. I had my eye on this “sanctioned” record being broken leading into this Davis Cup Final during my time as the press officer for the U.S. Davis Cup team and that it would break the “sanctioned” record set 50 years earlier, also in a Davis Cup Final, when Tony Trabert, Vic Seixas and Ham Richardson challenged Australia, led by Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad, in the 1954 Davis Cup “Challenge Round” (or Final) at the White City stadium and club in Sydney. The temporary bleachers that were set up during that series held 26, 578 fans. We invited Trabert, Seixas and Richardson to New York City to participate in a special media luncheon to discuss the 50th anniversary of this historic victory and to preview the soon-to-be-record-breaking 2004 Davis Cup Final, along with New York City’s own Patrick McEnroe, the U.S. Davis Cup captain at the time.
In permanent tennis structures, Arthur Ashe Stadium, the site of the U.S. Open, is the largest tennis stadium in the world at 23,771 seats. However, the stadium used to have slightly more capacity before the large screen TVs on the corners of the top of the stadium were installed and before the roof was added to the structure. Therefore, the largest crowd to watch a match in that structure came in 2007 when 25,250 fans saw Roger Federer defeat Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open men’s final.
Incidentally, with the Miami Open now being played inside the football venue, Hard Rock Stadium, there is an opportunity for that event, with some ingenuity, to break this all-time “sanctioned” match attendance record, as I wrote about here: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/16675
Listen to my podcast on this subject on my less-than-15-minute “15-Love with Randy Walker” podcast (Because the world needs another podcast) here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/22560481
