For Gerard Pique and Shakira, the hips (and Davis Cup attendances in Madrid) don't lie
There has been a sense of hubris about the new-look Davis Cup finals week ever since Gerard Pique’s consortium, Kosmos, made its dramatic entry in February 2018, purchasing 25 years of staging rights for a jaw-dropping $3 billion.
The same feeling applied to yesterday’s opening ceremony in Madrid, which featured performances from Alan Walker – a DJ and songwriter – and Puerto Rican singer Farruko. Unfortunately, it was scheduled at 2.30pm, well before the first matches started at 4pm. The main stadium was largely empty.
Attendance figures will be a hot topic all week, for while Spain’s ties have both sold out, many other nations will be bringing limited support to the Caja Magica. Yesterday, the former French Open semi-finalist, Filip Dewulf, tweeted a photo of an empty Stadium 3, which was about to host the match between Colombia and Dewulf’s own nation of Belgium. “Not the biggest crowd … yet,” he wrote. “Fifteen people standing on this side of the stands.”
Pique was clearly piqued. Once more fans had arrived, he tweeted two photos of his own. “It’s easy to take a picture before the players arrive at the court and criticise,” he said. “The true atmosphere during the game is this one.”
At least the players looked fully committed, with Canada’s Vasek Pospisil scoring the first upset of the week when he felled Italian world No 12, Fabio Fognini. As the British captain Leon Smith told reporters yesterday: “We’re all desperate for it to be a success.”
And things did look up as the evening wore on. A few more floating spectators arrived – Madrid being a city of night-owls – while the presence of bands on all three courts began to create an authentic Davis Cup flavour.
Not a disastrous start, then. But not exactly a triumph, either. At least the closing ceremony will be able to boast a pop superstar in its headline act, Shakira. Conveniently, she also happens to be Pique’s wife.
