“Another year gone”, to quote Albus Dumbledore. This is from one of his speeches in Harry Potter, just that it’s one that he held at the end of an academic year. He gave the Hogwarts students one Summer to empty their heads. In the case of a new calendar year there’s not much emptying that can happen in a night, and most things that are left behind for the few hours when people celebrate the New Year come back knocking on the door a few days, sometimes even hours, after the last of the fireworks light the sky.
2022 has been… slightly better because the pandemic seems behind us, awfully worse because we find ourselves in a time when war is fought, again. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions, of events, a year that passed by in the blink of an eye, occasionally leaving behind the impression that there is no time to finish what one started. This page was a little bit noisier this year, even if posts came with delays caused by lack of energy to sit down in front of my computer and write things down.
I am happy because I got my concerts and my tennis events back. I got to see The Mono Jacks live twice, they even made it to the top of my Spotify Wrapped. I attended my first Marillion weekend, I saw favourite artists again and enjoyed concerts of bands I’ve never seen live before, but had in my playlist. I crossed off my bucket list living in Brașov right across the street from the Black Church. Paris was welcoming, the tennis event I attended there was amazing, and Copenhagen was a sunny intermission of a packed Autumn. Last but not least, time with family, friends, cats and dogs is never wasted. And a lot of the year was about work, which I still enjoy, surprisingly. Part of the rollercoaster year is due to it.
2022, you were intense, I will not deny it, but you were good. Now let’s see what’s in store for 2023, with no resolutions, as per habit. I wish us all peace, love, health and happiness. Happy New Year!
After a few very nice days in Paris it was time to board a TGV to Stuttgart and be amazed by how fast and comfy this train ride is. The second part of my trip would be a quick stop in Germany for a bit of sightseeing and, of course, a concert. The band: Marillion. I am seriously beginning to think that liking them is contagious. After seeing them three evenings in a row in Stockholm in May, I pretty much put their new album on repeat and listened to it over and over again so many times that I just wanted to see them perform it live again. Last May I had listened to their whole album only once before seeing them play it live, they are that type of band: I don’t need to know all of their songs by heart, I know I’ll enjoy their gigs. Their latest album is called An Hour Before It’s Dark, and it deals with some very current and imperative issues. Worth a listen, both for the lyrics and for the music.
The location of the concert was a nice auditorium in an area that was a bit deserted: Liederhalle. The only people around were a few students and the audience and that was about it. The access to the venue was easy and well managed, can’t say the same about the security, it just felt like there was none at all. The location looked very good and as audience I think we were very well taken care of, except the fact that you had to pay with cash for drinks and merchandise, which feels very unusual these days. The event started with the opening act: June Road. A very lively duo with a Marillion love story background, playing indie folk and engaging with the audience with their warmth and talent. Their setlist was short and fun to listen to.
After they were done, and after a short break and a reminder to put our phones aside, Marillion appeared on stage, this time, with an extra guest: Luis Jardim who was there to take care of percussion – everything from shakers, bongos to even a cow bell. They quickly went into playing the entirety of their new album. H (Steve Hogarth), the singer, has his own special way of interacting with the audience, from cracking jokes to poking fun, to being sometimes a bit too sarcastic. One by one, the songs, which are usually made of 3 to 5 interlinked parts, were enchanting the audience. A few of them got standing ovations but nothing stirred more appreciation from the public than the marvellous handling of the guitar by Steve Rothery. From the first chord it was quite obvious that people were enjoying the music. But if I though Swedish audiences were passive, well, the German one was even more bland. But at the end of the day, I think all of us were there for the music, which is something we got plenty of, and showed gratitude for numerous times, some louder than others.
About halfway through the album, and through the setlist, obviously, it is time to listen to Murder Machines which is one of the few self-standing songs on the disc, and which has a very dark undertone to it, and a guitar riff to clap for frantically, especially when the guitarist moves forward on stage to step into the spotlight as to somehow draw our attention to the magic of the music. The song was followed by the Crow and the Nightingale, which H introduced as a tune written for Leonard Cohen, another self-standing song. This one was followed by the 5 parts of Sierra Leone which was an absolutely flawless, breathtaking performance. We all heard it, we felt it, even the whole band seemed to acknowledge it. And while still being under the spell of the previous track, the banked started playing the final song of the album: Care, after which we all knew that it was time for the older songs, all of us hoping that they will play some that we like. They started with Quartz and that was the first and only song of the evening that I didn’t know and didn’t care about, but the audience really seemed to enjoy it. Then they took a tour of some of their older albums with me being extra happy for Afraid of Sunlight and The Great Escape. For the encore they close to go with something that is oh so fitting for the current times: The New Kings, a 5-parts song from their 2016 album FEAR, which sends chills down my spine when I listen to it, like the whole album from which it is taken. Nevertheless, good song, especially for those who have the ears to listen. The last song of the evening was Sugar Mice, a piece from the Fish-era, where Fish is the band’s former lead singer. The old-school fans were ecstatic, and this was the only song when we actually stood, as until then we had been a very well-behaved audience. All in all, I believe this was one of the best gigs that I ever attended, and I say now as I said then: I don’t think I ever heard a band sound so good live before. I left the venue feeling happy and wishing the concert had been longer, even though Marillion spent around two hours on stage. But it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for a morning train ride to Frankfurt and from there onwards to Copenhagen for the third and final part of my holiday.
Besides the fact that Paris looks good in an October wardrobe and it’s always welcoming during Autumn, this year I had an extra reason to be there: tennis. After enjoying some sightseeing in the morning sun, it was time to head over to Accor Arena in Bercy and disappear between the walls of the stadium for three days of tennis matches in a row. Watching tennis live is a totally different experience than working at a tennis tournament. Besides actually having time to just sit and watch, it’s also a chance to be nothing more than a tennis fan, which means that you can pick a favourite and cheer for them, you can jump in between courts to see as many places as possible or you can get excited if you meet a player (Tsitsipas) on the street.
Diego Schwartzman
The organisation of the tennis tournament left a good first impression: you walk in and you get a bracelet which acts as a day pass to all courts. The central court has assigned seats, but for Courts 1 and 2 you have to queue and get in. When buying the tickets, I made sure to pick a section of the court that is my favourite to watch from: the corner. Luckily, the seats were also very close to the court, as the row numbers were increasing as you were descending, which meant that row 10 could be the 6th row from the railing going up. The arena is quite big, with 15609 seats available for tennis matches, and the atmosphere created by the organisers on the centre court is quite impressive. Of course, I had to be a total fan and download the official app and take part in all the interactive games that were available for the audience, including one where you could select the genre of music to which players would walk on court (you could choose between rock, classical and electro) just to increase the chances of them walking in to Muse’s Uprising. Can’t say the same about courts 1 and 2, which are incredibly small for a Masters 1000, and very hard to access, especially since organisers block the access to them claiming that there are no more seats available, when inside information clearly shows that there are. That cost me a doubles match on the first day! A few highlights though: Andy Murray vs Gilles Simon. Crazy atmosphere. The Frenchman’s last tournament, a first match against such an opponent, the crowd carrying him on their shoulders, it was quite impressive. Downsides of this: Simon’s playing style is rather flat, and the French crowd really confuses tennis with football, but nevertheless this was the highlight of day one. Other favourite moments were seeing Mikael Ymer playing against Bublik, or Cressy against Schwartzman. On the downside, the tennis crowd was loud and disrespectful, the food and beverages were overpriced and it was very hard to get a good cup of coffee. Due to the fact that the match between Simon and Murray was a long three-setter, after 5 games of Korda vs De Minaur it was time to head to the hotel. It was quite late into the night but luckily the hotel was one minute away from the arena.
Cressy vs Djokovic
Day two left no time for playing tourist, all matches were worth watching. The day was also sold-out. First match: Isner vs Rublev. Isner I’ve seen live before: spectacular serve on good days but long rallies and not very attractive shots. It was the first time I saw Andrey Rublev play live, he’s fun to watch. While the matches were unfolding on the centre court, courts 1 and 2 were hosting some impressive players that would have been worth seeing: Denis Shapovalov, Grigor Dimitrov, Fabio Fognini, Holger Rune or Tommy Paul. However, the queues to the two courts were incredibly long, and say you needed to leave and get some water or visit the restroom: you had to go all the way outside and queue again if you wanted to get back to the matches. I spent most of the day on the centre court watching the matches there, with the gem of the day being the match between Djokovik and Cressy, after which the Serb held the interview in French, capturing the crowd’s admiration even more. Ruud vs Gasquet was the last match of the day that I fully attended, after which Khachanov and Huesler took over the stage close to midnight, only to finish playing around 3 am in the morning.
Nadal vs Paul
Day three, the last day. It was finally time to see Stefanos Tsitsipas play, at last, after barely having time to catch a glimpse of some of his matches in Stockholm. The first match of the day was between the Greek and Daniel Evans of the UK. That was a nice watch and I was happy to see Stefanos walk out as the winner. The second match was between Daniil Medvedev and Alex De Minaur. First time I see Medvedev live, I’ve seen Alex several times before. This was a long and tight match and both of them deserved to win, but at the end of the day it was the Aussie that came out on top, to the frustration of his opponent who, after the last point, hit his racket against the court as hard as he could. The match between the world number 1, Carlos Alcaraz, and Yoshihito Nishioka was one of the most boring matches that I’ve seen during those few days. Maybe because it came after Medvedev vs De Minaur, maybe because I am not yet familiar with the Spaniard’s game, but it didn’t grow on me. The next match, Simon vs Fritz, was another long match during which the Frenchman displayed his signature game to live another day at the last tournament of his career. The surprise of the day came when Rafael Nadal was defeated by Tommy Paul, after easily taking the first set. The Spaniard lost the second set in the tiebreak and collapsed entirely during the decider, giving it away 6-1. Credit to the American who didn’t miss any opportunity to step-up his game and gather the points on the scoreboard next to his name. During the day I also finally got to go see a bit of doubles: a few games of Cressy/Escobar vs Evans/Peers and Ram/Salisbury vs Doumbia/Reboul. And in the blink of an eye the three days had passed.
Ram/Salisbury
The feeling of leaving a tennis stadium either because the tournament is over or because it is time to go do other things is extremely familiar. I’ve been feeling it year after year since I was 17 and it is always the same. It’s even harder to know that the second day there will be more matches to watch, but instead of entering the arena, you have to walk to the train station. Lovely memories are gathered like this, and filed away alongside all the other memories of live matches, nice experiences, walk-on-court tunes and cities visited to watch tennis. After two years of planning, dreaming and hoping, the tennis trip had finally taken place. It took me this long to put to good use the grant (Björn Sturéns Minne) I got from Stockholm Open in 2019, for doing something a little bit extra as a volunteer. The award can be used to travel to another tournament for study purposes and the focus of it is tennis, obviously. I was super happy and surprised when I received it, and I was extremely happy when I had the chance to step inside Accor Arena to watch tennis because of it. But after three days of watching the best players on one of tennis’ greatest scenes, it was time to board a TGV to Stuttgart, onward to another adventure. What was that one all about, you ask? Well, you will read all about it in my next post. Game, set, match, championship: Holger Rune, Koolhof/Skupski.
It wasn’t as straight-forward as it usually was to get there, but after a fascinating flight above Øresund Bridge and a few hours in Copenhagen airport, I was finally on my way to Paris. The transition between Sweden and France is always confusing. I end up speaking Swedish in Paris and mix French with Swedish when I return to Stockholm. But even so, the city is so familiar and so pretty still.
After a short stop in the French countryside, some laughs and a first night of restful sleep in a long time, it was time to head to the city. The sightseeing was cut short this time, with a late afternoon and an early morning to cross as many places worth revisiting from the long list of landmarks that I wanted to see again. The evening meant a quick stop in Père Lachaise to visit Jim on an evening when the sky was on fire, a kebap at a small place in Place de la Republique, catching up with my goth days by visiting La Fontaine des Innocents and finally facing my fears and entering Centre George Pompidou, a building that I found terrifing the first time I saw it, but don’t ask me why my 21 years old self decided that. It’s still scary but it was rather cool to enjoy the view of the city from its top floor. The last stop of the evening was Notre-Dame de Paris. Surrounded by construction site walls covered in posters of its story, the church is just as beautiful and imposing. What an empty spot it would have left in the heart of Paris and how lucky we are to see it still standing!
The morning meant spending at least 10 minutes staring at Tour Eiffel with a cup of coffee wondering why I like it so much. This was continued by a visit to Montmartre, a bit of cardio trying to get out from the metro in Abbesses (deepest metro station in Paris). Montmartre was flooded by tourists. The cozy streets, cafés, quiet squares were as crowded as ever. Walking around the steps and esplanade in front of Sacré-Coeur was a slalom among tourists and occasional merchants trying to take advantage of them. On a crowded day the neighbourhood loses its charm but keeps its beauty.
And after a tour de force around the city, it was time to go and spend the next 3 days in Bercy, though not before enjoying delicious onion soup and crêpes at Terrasse Bercy, where Clyde the Cat was kind enough to allow us to sit next to him at the table. The area of Bercy is famous for various reasons, one of them being Accor Arena. Why was I so interested in this arena will be the topic of my next post. Bercy Village is close by, a small commercial area with a history of once being the World’s leading wine market. It’s a nice walk but also a bit of a tourist trap. However, if one wants to dine at a nice restaurant or discover wine cellars and study wine, then it’s probably worth spending more time there. On the way to Bercy Village, and to the left side of the Parc de Bercy, one runs into the building of Cinémathèque Francaise. A few months ago I rewatched Hugo. It made me realise how much I miss visiting Paris. It also gave me the soundtrack for this trip, Coeur Volant. While walking down the sidewalk and passing the Cinémathèque, my eyes fell on a billboard of Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune, a piece familiar to some as the inspiration of Smashing Pumpkins’ video for Tonight, Tonight. And so the circle was complete and, after the stroll around the neighbourhood, it was time to leave Paris and board a TGV to Stuttgart. More about that soon!
This year’s Stockholm Open returned to its regular week in October. It was good to be back at the Royal Tennis Hall during the usual time, it gives us more time to enjoy daylight and slightly warmer days. We were also back into full action with no restrictions on the number of guests and a fully staffed team. Little did we know what that would mean and how lucky we were to have a regular-sized team again.
The closer we got to the tournament week, the more news we got on players that were actually going to visit the tournament. It was a bit disappointing to see that Alex Zverev was still recovering from his injury and wouldn’t join, as it was announced, but it was thrilling to welcome back the 2018 winner, Stefanos Tsitsipas. The same for the 2019 winner, Denis Shapovalov, and all of the other amazing players that chose to participate in this year’s tournament. All in all, the names that made it to the main draw were big, and the excitement grew with each day. On the doubles side, my favourite part of the tournament, we were visited, among the 16 pairs that made it to the main draw, by two teams (Arévalo/Rojer and Glasspool/Heliovaara) that have qualified to the ATP World Tour Finals, where the best 8 singles players and the best 8 teams in the world compete for the last trophies of the season.
Cressy vs Tsitsipas
The highlights of the week for me were watching a few doubles matches here and there (Arévalo/Rojer vs Kubot/Oswald and Arévalo/Rojer vs Gonzales/Molteni), as well as bits and pieces of the matches Mykael and Elias Ymer played in singles, the qualifying matches of my fellow Romanian, Nicholas David Ionel, as well as a few games of Denis Shapovalov’s and Emil Ruusuvuori’s matches.
Arevalo/Rojer won vs Glasspool/Heliovaara
The rest of the week was work, work, work and more intensive work. I mentioned at the beginning of the post and will do it again: we were so lucky to have a regular-sized team this year. And we were lucky to see their commitment and willingness to align with the values that were passed on to us and that we took even further, of making sure we deliver the best experience a world class event could deliver and even more. Maybe one day I will go into detail of what we actually do. I can say that this year was all about running errands, baking birthday cakes, fixing the coffee machine, and as always, securing those precious water bottles.
This is one of the weeks of the year that comes and goes in the blink of an eye, and after 8-9 days of focusing only on tennis, we find ourselves eagerly waiting for next year’s edition, though still recovering after the current one. Looking forward to new tennis adventures, but until then: 2022 game, set, match, championship: Arévalo/Rojer and Holger Rune.
Spinning Words 