Some of you may recall back in February of this year I decided to be a Tennis Tourist for the first time in absolutely ages, and journeyed to the Dutch city of Rotterdam to watch the ATP 500 event.
Well it gave me the bug to have a go at this Tennis Tourist malarkey again. This time I quite fancied having a look at Vienna as it has always seemed a place that is quite fascinating in TV programmes. As the Erste Bank Open was taking place in Vienna and there was a pretty decent field for ATP 500 event, I thought why not combine the tennis and the tourist bit.
There was one prudent thing I think I learnt from my experiences from Rotterdam. That was watching tennis live for 4 days on the trot is actually quite exhausting and you need a lot of stamina. I therefore set out my week in Vienna, Monday to Friday and decided to book tickets on the Tuesday and Thursday of the event.
Tickets were pretty easy to obtain through the Erste Bank Open website and they had the facility to order the tickets on an English website. One of the fascinating things about the Erste Bank Open in comparison to many tournaments nowadays, is the fact that you are paying for a ticket for an entire day, not just a day or a night session. Consequently on the Tuesday I invested 88 Euros for a seat two rows from the side of the court, and 67 Euros for a ticket for a ticket towards the side of the court on a higher level on Thursday (more to come about that later). So anyone attending Centre Court would be guaranteed at least 4 matches the first 5 days of the main tournament. There was also a second court in a separate "Halle" which I understand you could pay 10 Euros to watch a few singles matches, but primarily doubles.
How do you get to Vienna?
For many there is only one realistic option to get to Vienna and that is to fly. I paid roughly £230 return to get to Vienna from the UK, with the infamous Ryan Air, which on my return journey turned out to be Lauda Air, but lets not go into that story right now. You can of course find cheaper flights on websites (Wiz Air seemed to one popular carrier), however, when you book all the extras, cabin baggage, check in luggage, booking your seat, going to the toilet (joking but it wouldn't surprise me one day), the price of your flight starts to triple. I think all I will say it requires some serious research.
There are of course other ways to get to get to Austria, by road or rail as examples. I was reliably informed by a driver to taking me to a day trip I was going on, that you can apparently drive from Vienna to Prague directly in just over 3 hours.
Accommodation
It may not surprise people to know that Vienna, being a prominent capital city of Europe, has a multitude of accommodation options to suit the needs and budget of every type of traveller. I stayed in the Ibis City Wien situated near Pilgrimgasse on the Vienna U Bahn network and approximately 5 mins metro ride from Karlsplatz and Stephansplatz stations in the very centre of Vienna, and prominent stations in the U-Bahn network as well, which more or less takes you to anywhere in Vienna. If you can find accommodation near these areas, it would be highly recommended. Ibis City Wien is towards the budget end of hotels, but it served it's purpose perfectly.
Travelling Around Vienna
I must confess I did not take full advantage of Vienna's extensive transport network, including metro, bus and tram, basically because travelling by metro served its purpose in getting me to where I wanted to be within a matter of 10-20 minutes tops. From what I could gather however, the metro service was very reliable., if quite busy at times. In terms of costs, people may wish to invest in getting a Vienna City Card which gives a 24, 48 and 72 hour option to pay for transport on entire network, with no additional costs. There was an extra which you could add to get a return airport transfer using the CAT train, which takes roughly 16 minutes to get into the city. I invested in a 72 hour card including airport transfer, for 51 Euros. I also got a discount on several tourist attractions using the City Card as well. It is worth mentioning as well you got free travel on the Vienna network using your tennis ticket, for up to two hours before and after the event.
Vienna - Is there more to it that just watching Tennis?
The answer to this question is yes, 100 percent, with absolute bells on. In fact I would probably argue if you spent two weeks in Vienna, you would struggle to fit in all that is available to see in Vienna and the surrounding area. Vienna also serves as a gateway to visiting other parts of Austria and other cities in Europe. I myself visited a village called Hallstatt, in the Austrian Alps, which has stunning views and is one of the oldest and dare I say most beautiful places I have visited.
As a taster of some of the Vienna options I will speak of some of the ones I visited.
Time Travel Austria is an interactive experience that tells you about the history of Austria it may not surprise you in a Time Travel context, and it really is quite fascinating and worth and hour of your time to understand Austria's history. It is a 5D experience (and if you don't understand what that means, you will do by the end of the experience), and includes AI as well. You don't have to worry about understanding what's going on if you don't speak German. You literally place an audio guide to your ears and the rest is done for you be it in English, French, Italian or whatever so language you require. Well worth a visit I would say.
Schönbrunn Palace is Vienna's most popular tourist attraction, and a Baroque Style palace which was home to the Habsburg monarchy for over 300 years. If you do a tour within the palace, you get to see many of the stunningly preserved rooms within the palace. You have audio guide to explain the history of each room as well. It terms of the palace's history, you do get that feeling of going back in time and understanding the lives of the Habsburg monarchy. As well as the palace itself, you can also visit the beautiful gardens, and Schönbrunn Zoo (Tiergarten Schönbrunn). The zoo is apparently the oldest existing zoo in the world dating back to 1752 and is well worth a visit if you have a morning/afternoon to spare. I would just like to say I well and truly fell in love with a baby orangutan, and I defy anyone else not to either.
The Spanish Riding School or Spanische Hofreitchule, is a worldwide renowned riding school. The school trains Lipizzaner horses in the art of dressage. The public has opportunities to attend shows, do tours of the school and watch the horses being trained. I spent the morning watching the horses being trained. You receive commentary about the history of the school, how the horses are trained, when they begin training etc. As result of limited time, I only had the opportunity to watch the horses train, but it was fascinating the almost military precision with which the horses are trained and what magnificent animals they actually are.
Prater Wien is a large amusement park, arguably most famous for a giant ferris wheel (Wiener Risenrad) which dates back to 1897. I must confess that I went to Prater on what could only be described as a miserable rainy day in Vienna, however, if you go in the summer, I could imagine this place to be absolutely heaving. The wheel itself gives views of the city of Vienna, but I was kind of grateful for a German speaking man who in classic international sign language, explained that the Ferris wheel actually has opening windows, so it is possible to take photos that don't look like you are taking photos through a window with rain pelting down against it.
Anyway as I said, this is just a taster of Vienna and barely scratches the surface if I am honest.
And so to the tennis - Was it worth it?
The Erste Bank Open was apparently celebrating it's 49th edition this year, It is an ATP 500 men's event and every year seems to have a pretty phenomenal field competing for the trophy, and this year was no exception with about 12 of the world's top 20 competing. Not really surprising with the end of season approaching and the scramble for points to reach the end of year finals.
My experience of the Erste Bank Open as a tennis tourist is an interesting one, because there were bits of that were really, really good. Others bits were possibly not so good but when I reflect on some things is there possibly a simple explanation for this.
This kind of started before I had even ventured to Vienna. As I said previously I had purchased my tickets for the event via the English version of the website, as I'll be honest, I have never had the opportunity to learn German properly, and the extent my knowledge of the language relates to seriously random words such as spargel (asparagus in English - long story) and apfel strudel (I like good desserts). On receipt of my booking confirmation in my email inbox, I found that all information including the ticket itself was in actual German. Now don't get me wrong, there are bits of a ticket you can work out such as date, time etc, however, but when there's are large paragraphs, you need to try and use Google Translate for fear you may miss some crucial information and you are at risk of breaking rules and regulations you didn't even know existed.
The tournament venue is the Wiener Stadthalle which is about a 15-20 mins metro ride from the centre of Vienna, on line U6 to Burgasse, so your journey is pretty smooth to the venue and as I mentioned previously you can take advantage of your ticket giving free travel for up to two hours before and after the end of the event, which is an excellent initiative and should be employed more at any sporting events worldwide to be honest.
Once in the Halle D, where the Centre Court is situated, the actual area surrounding the entrance to the Centre Court, is what I would describe as quite claustrophobic, with the amount of fans who are attending the tournament. The main areas are absolutely chock-o-block with Sponsor stalls and if you haven't had an opportunity to invest in tennis outfits or tennis equipment for a while, there are probably enough stalls to set you up for the next two years. The foyer did have an interview/interactive area where fans did have the opportunity to interact with famous players. The Tuesday early afternoon when I arrived, Boris Becker was actually being interviewed, which I found a bit bizarre as his new charge Holger Rune was due to play in Basel that evening. Fair play though he apparently was in Basel by the evening.
Catering facilities were what I would describe as limited within Halle D, although I don't know whether this was due to my limited understanding of what was actually available. The Erste Bank Open being an all day event, meant in realty you are probably looking at 2 "decent" meals to keep you going for an entire day. In my ventures round the Halle, I found one stall called Fat Monk, which appeared to provide a decent, substantial meal with a choice of 3 dishes. Other stalls as far as I could see were mainly serving snacks as opposed to substantial meals for the most part. So my diet for two days mainly consisted of snacks, drinks and not much else. Interestingly representatives of a world renowned food delivery service (they wore orange t-shirts) were actually delivering food and drinks to fans in their seats in the arena. No idea how they did this and wouldn't have the facility to do either, but as an idea it intrigued me. Incidentally, I think this the first ever major venue I have attended where Coca-Cola or Pepsi were not available to customers. Red Bull all the way folks
So to Erste Bank Open's biggest selling point the actual tennis. The arena is a wonderful venue to witness great tennis. You have a pretty much great views from wherever you are sitting in the arena. The only issue I had was with the seat I had on the Thursday, and I mean literally the seat. I paid 67 Euros for the seat and when I got to the seat I realised why. The seat I can only describe as a solid sheet of metal with approximately 2 mm cushioning for your back, and the actual seat pretty much just the same. Imagine sitting on it for 11 hours. In fact there was a father and son who felt more comfortable sitting on the stairs by the seats for most of the day, that's how bad they were.
The atmosphere you couldn't fault at all. The Austrians clearly love their tennis and the vast majority stayed for the entire day for the tennis which was great to see, something which is quite rare amongst the tennis viewing public nowadays. The players seem to love the atmosphere as well and appreciated the support of the fans. In fact it was electric at times, particularly during the match between the Austrian favourite Thiem and Tsitsipas. There is also music to get you going as well, and big screen entertainment including Kiss Cam, and people attempting to replicate emojis.
The tennis itself was of decent quality for the most part. No player seemed to be struggling with the quality of the court or any other issues. The matches I saw were highly competitive for the most part, which added more to the enjoyment of the day, but if you are a fan invested in a player, it can be exhausting. Stef I'm blaming you for that 😀
So my conclusions of the Erste Bank Open, well I enjoyed my time at the tournament an awful lot in terms of the actual tennis, which is essentially what I came to Vienna for. I do wonder if I missed out on the general fan experience though and whether I needed to do more research, particularly on the English version of the Erste Bank Open website. There is also a question of what expectations should you expect when travelling to a country where English, German or any other language is not the native language of that country. Does the Erste Bank Open actually have a lot of visitors from outside of Austria? Is it necessary for the tournament to invest in providing more information for fans in different languages, particularly in the actual venue for example. I think the biggest lesson, I have learnt as a tennis tourist this time is to do proper research before travelling to a country where I don't speak or understand the native language.
Would I attend the Erste Bank Open again? Yes, I definitely would, but armed with good information in advance.
