Thoughts on the Brasil Open and Shelter Dogs

Maria Esther Bueno praises the shelter dogs playing at ball boy and gives some insight into the Brasil Open after reports that the Frenchman Benoit Paire asked for a wild card and was furious to find it was being playing outdoors.

“It is true that the tournament was played indoors for a few years but I would have thought a tennis pro should be able to check his facts before travelling across the world to play,” she said.

“It started many years ago being played outdoors in the north of Brazil but went indoors into the Ibirapuera Arena when it moved to Sao Paulo a few years back.

“It is a very old building, which got very hot, and the organisers had to lay a clay court down so it was never very satisfactory, plus it accommodated 15,000 spectators, which was way too big and so often looked rather empty.”

“Rightly so, the organisers decided to move the tournament outdoors to the Pinheiros Club where it has been very well attended and successful,” she continued.

”It is a smaller showcourt so always looks pretty full and Pinheiros has many members so there was a lot of interest from them as well as the public.

“It also makes sense to play it outdoors since Rio was outdoors last week.”

Apparently Paire decided to take the wild card after playing on indoor hard courts in Marseille a week earlier and he lost to Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic 6-0 4-6 6-3, facing no less than 18 break points and losing his serve 5 times.

“Honestly, I didn’t know the tournament was outdoor this year,” he told the media afterwards. “When I saw the first match on the TV, I was surprised it was not indoor like it was last year.

“I asked for a wild card here because I was scared of losing early in Marseille like in the previous 3 tournaments, so it could have been too long to stay 3 weeks without playing matches before heading to Indian Wells.

“I thought this was a good chance for me to win the tournament, but obviously under different conditions”.

The tournament follows the Rio Open, which is played outdoors on the clay, and it was Pablo Cuevas who successfully defended his Brasil Open title with a 7-6(4) 6-3 victory over Pablo Carreno Busta in the final on Sunday.

The 30 year old earned his fifth tour-level title and second in as many weeks after winning the Rio Open seven days ago.

“During the tournament, I didn’t play as well as I did in Rio,” Cuevas admitted.

“I was making more unforced errors and being less aggressive, but I was focused and calm, which was the key to winning this week. I was down in the tie-break, but came back to win the first set. In the second set, there were many long rallies, but I think he got a little tired and I was able to make a difference.”

Maria Esther added: “ Cuevas has had a very good run on the clay, which should hold him in good stead for the coming months.”

Shelter Dogs

“The highlight of the week for me, though, was the display put on by the stray dogs!,” she continued.

“These were four trained shelter dogs that were picked up off the streets of Sao Paulo and are being trained as ‘ball kids’.

“They showed off their skills a few times on the court and were so good!”

In fact they made headlines all around the world after Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain and Gastao Elias of Portugal played an exhibition on Thursday night and the canines, Frida, Costela, Mel and Isabelle, engaged onlookers by picking up balls that went out of bounds.

The shelter dogs, wearing orange ribbons and trained for months, spent almost half an hour tracking down balls often intentionally missed by the 122nd and 140th ranked players.

At the command of their trainer Andrea Beckert, the dogs retrieved the balls with their teeth and ran off the court to their trainer.

The unusual initiative was made to promote the adoption of abandoned street animals.

Beckert said the biggest difficulty was to make the animals more confident and playful.

”These are dogs that were mistreated. We have to make them adapt, feel the environment, the court, the noise of the balls and the noise of the people. Some are doing well, others are still a little scared,” she told journalists.

The basic commands that the dogs are learning are ‘pick the ball’, ‘let it go’, ‘stay’ and ‘come’.

The organiser of the ball-dog initiative, Marli Scaramella, said that all four still live in shelters.

“The idea is to show people that a well-fed and well-treated animal can be very happy. We have more than 1,000 dogs in our care,” she said.

“It’s a great initiative,” added Maria Esther. “My family have several rescue dogs and they are wonderful. Such fun!

“I hope more people will give these dogs a good home.”

To watch a longer version of the video, click HERE.