Late in January, thousands of people, masked and also audaciously not masked, shuffled into Adelaide’s Memorial Drive Park to enjoy once again the feeling of jostling, and of being jostled, in service of what they thought was the reawakening of professional tennis after a yearlong pandemic lockdown. They were, in truth, witnessing—and participating in—the end of a grand experiment.
The return to in-person spectating is, I suppose, a victory of sorts, and as such this nose-thumb to the coronavirus should be celebrated. But amid the joyful clamor at what we’re regaining, we should probably take note of what we’re giving up: the miracle of crowd-free tennis.
The pandemic and other social ills have rendered unignorable a daunting menu of inequities in this world. The arc of the moral universe lately looks to be a crazy straw. But—and I hate to look for silver linings when everything is just so awful—crowdless arenas have removed some of the imbalance in this sport, for fans and players alike.