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Qatar Chit Chat
Out and about at the
Qatar Classic |
In
the Papers
In previous years the press in Doha have had to make dowith a single
shared telephone line for getting the news out, accounting for some late
nights for Fritz!
 As
part of the refurbishment for the Asian Games, we now have a proper
media room with all mod cons - wireless internet and a fridge
permanently stocked with cold drinks being the best two features - so
the local and internationalmedia are well catered for.
Here's some of the local press coverage,from the Gulf Times and
the Qatar Tribune ... |
Rajiv Tripathi
in the Qatar Tribune |
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John Verghese in the Gulf Times |
Keeping the Score
 It's
all very well keeping the spectators informed of the score, but what
about the players? Well, part of the extensive refurbishment of the
Khalifa Squash and Tennis complex for last year's Asian Games included
six new courts (bringing the total of glassbacks to eight) and the
installation of an ASB scoreboard on each.
Controlled by a little keypad, the scoreboards are shown on a plasma TV
screen outside each court, and also onto a screen embedded into the tin
for the players.
The screens weren't in use yesterday, but when I arrived this morning
they were showing what appeared to be normal TV pictures ... while the
players were practicing!
Sounds like a real distraction, but to be fair, when I mentioned it to
Karim Darwish and Engy Kheirallah, who had just come off court, they
said they never even noticed the TV pictures which were on their court,
and Becky Botwright and Jaclyn Hawkes also hadn't seen the scoreboard on
their tin ...
Which surely speaks volumes for the concentration and single-mindedness
of the players ...
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Last
to arrive were the referees, since the qualifying wasn't actually over
when everyone else headed off to the function - well, someone's got to
hold the fort, haven't they ...
