The tennis insider, who is also the founder of the Racquet magazine, Caitlin Thompson, recently weighed in on the empty stadium during the Amanda Anisimova and Victoria Mboko clash at the Indian Wells.
Mboko and Anisimova locked horns in the tournament on March 11, where the former delivered an impressive performance, claiming a straight-set (6-4, 6-1) win. Apart from the scoreboard, another thing that grabbed attention was the mostly empty stadium. Their match took place in Stadium 2, which accommodates almost 8000 fans, and during this season, it has faced multiple empty seats.
This situation came after the tournament brought a change in its ticket policy. In previous years, the officials would allow fans with ground passes to enter the stadium and gain access to the upper bowl; however, this year, the entire stadium has come under reserved seating, which has made it inaccessible for fans with ground passes.
In the recent episode of Rennae Stubbs’ podcast, the tennis insider, Thompson, weighed in on the empty stands during the clash between Mboko and Anisimova, blaming Indian Wells for the same. (38:00 onwards)
Victoria Mboko on Her Loss Against Aryna Sabalenka at The Indian Wells
“I mean, I do find, you’re right, I had a lot of chances in the first set. And, I mean, it’s unfortunate that I was unable to kind of take them as much as I could, but she was playing really well, especially on pressure points. I gotta give credit to her there. I feel like sometimes I was, like, maybe one or two points away from kind of maybe changing how the first set would have went and changing the momentum. But yeah, that’s something I could work on for the next time,” she added.
Before her Indian Wells appearance, she competed at the Qatar Open, where she progressed to the finals but fell short of lifting the trophy after her loss against Karolina Muchova.
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