Players used to eat at Tom Okker's house

In the 50 years of the ABN AMRO Open, it is unlikely that much has changed in Rotterdam Ahoy. Take the players' restaurant. What did the tennis players eat at the time? 'Mostly sandwiches', says Peter Bonthuis, who was the first tournament director between 1974 and 1983. Tom Okker brought his own bread. And when players like Arthur Ashe stayed with him, they ate at Okker's house. Other participants occasionally eat a hamburger in the city. It was all very limited here in Ahoy.'

Half a century later, the player's restaurant consumes about 420 kilos of pasta, 230 kilos of chicken fillet, 500 pieces of salmon fillet, 290 kilos of bananas, 100 kilos of mixed salad and 70 kilos of apples, all in a week's time. 'We offer all kinds of meal components and the players put together their own food', says Ralf Knikkenberg, head of catering at the tournament. He started his career in 1997 as a cook in the players' lounge. ' Today we have three chefs in the kitchen and between six and eight people for service only. We offer exactly what the tennis players are looking for and, judging by the reactions, we are also very much appreciated by players.’

Professional tennis players are almost just skin and bones these days. Especially since Novak Djokovic drastically changed his diet about eight years ago, things have changed in the eating pattern of most tennis players. The Serbian, now winner of 22 Grand Slam titles and again number 1 in the world after the Australian Open, suffered from all kinds of food allergies and rigorously stopped consuming meat, gluten, dairy products and white sugar. Since then, he has found much-needed energy mainly in green smoothies, quinoa, rice and, above all, many fruit salads.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, the current number 3 in the world and placed first at the ABN AMRO Open, announced this week that he was following a sugar-free diet. The NOS reporter who interviewed him gave him a bag of 'typically Dutch' liquorice as a token of thanks, to which the Greek said that he would like to taste the sweets unknown to him, 'but only after the final.'

Half a century ago there was nothing remotely like the hospitality area of ​​today in Rotterdam Ahoy. Both for tennis players and for the public. In 2023 there will be all kinds of excellent restaurants in the side halls, the chefs of which have been awarded no fewer than six Michelin stars. 'You just can't compare this kind of thing with how it was at the beginning of the tournament', says Peter Bonthuis. 'It's all so professional now.’