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Playing the Fed Cup semi-finals indoors has
reduced the excitement, according to Barbara Schett of Austria.
Schett's 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) defeat by
Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, which left her country 2-0 down in the
best-of-five semi-final, was watched by no more than half the
2,400-capacity of the Congresos de Maspalomas, despite featuring the
host nation Spain.
Schett said the lack of spectators
was in part due to temperatures outside approaching 30 degrees Celsius
"There wasn't any atmosphere,"
Schett said. "For me it would have been better outdoors. When the
weather is like this, who wants to come and watch tennis indoors?"
With the season-ending WTA
Championships taking place next week on an indoor hardcourt in Los
Angeles -- featuring the world's top 16 singles players and top eight
doubles pairs -- the International Tennis Federation (ITF) decided this
week's Fed Cup, and the final, would be played on a similar surface.
Of the Fed Cup semi-finalists,
only Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia and Silvia Farina Elia of Italy, are
competing next week in Los Angeles.
Sanchez-Vicario said she would
have preferred to play outdoors, where the conditions would have
benefited the Spanish team, but said she understood the ITF's decision.
"It's right and it's not right,"
she said. "If you're playing at the Championships next week, then it's
right because if you play on clay and then this surface, it is very
difficult.
"Of course it would have been
better for us to have it outside, but we tried to put a court in that's
not too fast."
On the men's tour, the Davis Cup
final is played after the Masters Cup, ruling out similar problems.
"A lot of the people who are here,
are here on holiday, while the people from the island cannot come
because they are working," Sanchez-Vicario said.
"I do really think that there will
be a lot more people here at the weekend, and hopefully we can get to
the final."
"Maybe it's something (the ITF)
can look at for next year,though."
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