penangites who passed the esplanade past few days, must be appalled to suddenly see a gargantuan structure sprouting out of nowhere all of a sudden.

as i passed by esplanade quite often during my office lunch time, yes i notice the structures. didn’t really know what it was until last saturday a  friend told me that there will be an international tennis tournament with big names to be held there. so i google for tennis tournament in penang and found this site where i then learned that the structures is none other than a makeshift tennis court! a ’stadium’ with seating capacity for watching of tennis was created right in the esplanade field!

huh? i was wondering. why on earth? it stick out like a sore thumb! then i heard that it will be an international tennis tournament (dubbed ‘king of tennis’ with many big names and i wonder to myself, wow! can they really get those big names to penang? well, if this event is going to be a success, i wish the organisers all the best (though i oppose the idea of ’spoiling’ the esplanade to erect the makeshift court).

as we were going to have out anti-ISA candelight vigil on 15 nov, when the tennis tournament was suppose to start from 14 to 16 nov, also at the esplanade, we decided to shif the venue… but just as we settled on shifting the venue, suddenly the next morning we heard that the tournament had been canceled. well, i’m happy in a way that we can now hold our vigil at the esplanade but at the same time i wonder - so what happened to the makeshift court? how much had they spent to build it, then not use it, only to have demolish it. well, it was learnt that the organiser had spent RM2.5 million to construct the makeshift court with a 5,000-seat capacity. RM2.5 million! and all that will be gone in a jiffy!

apparently the reason for the cancellation was due to the lack of payment of funds from the organizers. also, at anil netto’s blog:

“We express our sincere apologies to the public and all those parties concerned but we simply could not provide the players without the payment of promised funds that did not materialise despite a number of ultimatums given to the local promoter/organiser by our organisation,” said the event producers in a press release by Ming, KH & Associates Sdn Bhd on behalf of the overseas-based producers of ‘Kings of Tennis’.

huh? so this was a problem between the organiser and producer? whatever happened? why didn’t they sort out the financing part before deciding to build the makeshift court? so now what happened? pull down the court and clear the mess? all for nothing? and how much will it cost to do that? already spent RM2.5 million for nothing and have to spent… how much thousands again?… to clear up everything?

this is really ridiculous! i wonder did the state government knows anything about the tournament? it seems that they don’t. it seemed… er… it was?… an entirely private initiative. well if the government is involved, i tell you, the hue and cry will be much greater!