I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of 3D, so I was more than a little sceptical of how watching a sporting event in the format but when Sony invited What Culture! to check out Sunday's Wimbledon's men final between Nadal and Djokovic, LIVE and in a 3D Cinema, I was curious to see how this would translate to sports. I remember vividly a Sky screening of Alice in Wonderland last year that had a sporting package ad attached that featured an English rugby player throwing the ball seemingly out of the screen and I involuntary raised my hands as if to catch it, forgetting I was actually in a cinema and this would be impossible! Sports in 3D was the only time I have ever felt this way - so I left all my pretensions behind to watch the tennis and just enjoy the experience. I also made sure to pick up an isle seat so if I started to feel I was in the match, squaring off against Nadal, I wouldn't be hitting the person sitting next to me with my imaginary racket (i.e. my hand!!). How close would big screen tennis in 3D be to sitting at centre court at Wimbledon or indeed watching it in HD at home? Well whilst I've never been to Wimbledon so I can't answer the former, I can say the latter is leaps and bounds from watching the tennis at home!! In a word tennis in 3D is amazing. No longer do you have to rely on an awkward 2D sense of depth for shots played to the opposite side of the main camera's baseline, no longer do you have to rely on replays to see how fast, how skillful, or much spin players like Nadal put on the balls as they glide through the air and now you feel like you are a part of the action. At once the ball and the players hitting them. It's an incredible experience and gives me huge optimism about the future of sporting events in 3D. What 3D gives you, of course, is a sense of space and ball movement that just can't be recaptured at home. Of course the really special aspect of watching 3D tennis in a cinema is the benefits of watching any sport in a cinema, 3D or not. There's the social experience of it, the coming together of a group of people who don't have anything in common with each other except the love for that particular sport and as our Brit Andy Murray had been knocked out in the semi's, there was more of a 50/50 split than I was expecting between Nadal and Djokovic. It wasn't quite like being a at football match where it's clear who the allegiance in but I think as the game went on more people were hoping Nadal would stick it through, perhaps because they were enjoying the 3D experience so much they wanted the game to go to 5 sets. My huge thanks to Sony for inviting What Culture to see this sporting event in 3D. I now want to see boxing, football, the superbowl etc brought to my local theatres in this format. It may not quite live up to being in the stadium itself... but it's a very close second best and sure beats watching it at home!
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