At Spore Tennis Open and S'pore Smash, crowds proclaim some faith in sport

The city should be silent. It's a working Monday, kids back in school, 7.45pm on a Singapore night. But hell no, it's smoke, lights and passionate pandemonium in OCBC Arena.

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Local hero Clarence Chew is being confronted by the sophisticated skill of China's world No. 4 Liang Jingkun, but even as he loses he finds the evening heady. A sturdy crowd over 2,000 ticket holders - will do that.

"From the first moment you step on court," says Chew on Feb 3, "you can hear the crowd cheering for you. The atmosphere, the lights, everything, it really hypes you up and pumps you up. It gives you the real feeling of a world-class, spectacular event that is being held in Singapore.

"So, yeah, it really gets me excited." All the top 10 women are here at the Singapore Smash and nine of the top 10 men, all of them doing hand-eye voodoo at 100kmh with a table tennis bat that bears little resemblance to the slow-motion ping pong you produce on your community table.

Here there are autograph signings, musicians, fake tattoos inked on, food trucks. In a crowded sporting marketplace all manner of pandering is afoot across the world. At tennis' Australian Open - where they got 1,102,303 fans for the fortnight Grammy superstars sang, bars doled out intoxication and 5,000 Hot Shots Tennis rackets were given out. The sport was quite good, too.

There was a bar on a court at the Australian Open and next year there might be another one.