‘I saw a drone hit the US consulate’ – Patten’s escape from Dubai

From the moment a fighter jet flew over Dubai’s centre court last Saturday as the players were about to walk on for the final, Britain’s Grand Slam doubles champion Henry Patten knew this would be no ordinary week.

The 29-year-old and doubles partner Harri Heliovaara were part of a 40-strong group of players, officials and media who could find no immediate way home after the United Arab Emirates came under attack from Iranian missiles amid the Middle East conflict.

Patten heard explosions from the player hotel during his extended stay in Dubai, and spent 14 hours in a car as he made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to cross the border from the UAE into Oman.

Having finally secured a flight back to London via Cairo and Rome, Patten then had to brace himself for take-off.

“I’m an anxious flyer at the best of times,” last year’s Australian Open champion told BBC Sport.

“It was up to me to pluck up the courage to get on that flight out of Dubai airport the day after I saw the drone hit the US consulate building about five minutes away.

“It wasn’t particularly enjoyable, to say the least, but I didn’t really have much of a choice.

“The person next to me was an Egyptian guy who didn’t speak any English, which was probably a good thing.

“We just looked at each other and gave each other a little nod and we were on our way. But certainly the first couple of hours on that flight were the longest couple of hours of a flight I have ever experienced.

“I was with Simone Bolelli’s coach [Michele Mangiafico] earlier and he said ‘let’s go to the lounge’.

“I’m having a glass of water, shaking, and he goes to the bar and comes back with the biggest plate of breakfast I have ever seen and eats it in about five minutes.

Patten and Heliovaara’s victory in the final in Dubai was their second ATP title in as many weeks.

But as the Finn is an “aviation geek”, in the words of Patten, they knew even before the final that their departure was very likely to be delayed.

The ATP extended everyone’s room booking in the player hotel and covered meal expenses as the conflict spread to neighbouring states.

Patten saw people playing golf on a nearby course but, as everyday activities continued for some, multiple nearby explosions underlined the potential danger they were in.

“If I didn’t have access to my phone, to the news and social media, I really don’t think I would have known there was a war going on,” Patten said.

“I would sit in my hotel room and watch people going to the pool. I would go to the pool.

“Harri was there with his family, so it wasn’t like we were sheltering in the stairwell or the basement of the hotel.

“You obviously always have an ear out and certainly the debris or the drone that hit the airport about 10 minutes away from the hotel woke me up in the night with a big bang.

On the Tuesday there was an ill-fated attempt to cross the land border with Oman to catch a flight from the capital Muscat.

But when the UAE-registered car got to the border, the driver was told he did not have the right documentation to pass.

By the time Patten, who was travelling with Heliovaara, his wife and their two small children, had squeezed into an Omani registered vehicle with all their bags, the UAE border officials held them up further.

Too much time had been lost.

“With our tail between our legs, we drove back to Dubai – but that was quite upsetting because mentally it took me quite a lot to commit to that road trip to Muscat,” Patten said.

But there would soon be much better news. Shortly after the ATP offered the players the chance to get on a chartered plane from Muscat, officials from Emirates airline arrived in the hotel lobby and started to book guests on increasingly available flights.

All European destinations had been booked by the time they got to Patten, who ended up settling for an 8am flight via Cairo the following morning.

The ATP Tour has been criticised by some players for not immediately cancelling this week’s Fujairah Challenger event in the UAE.

“Realistically, I’m not sure what they could have done. No-one really saw that level of escalation coming,” Patten said.

“Arnau [Brugues] and Hans-Juergen [Ochs] were the two ATP representatives who were there. Their job is to make sure that tennis tournaments run smoothly, and here they are responsible for 44 people in an active warzone.

“I’ve told the two guys that in the circumstances they did a fantastic job.

“But I wasn’t particularly happy when the CEO of the ATP [Eno Polo] called up and said ‘We’re going to charter you a plane. We don’t have any information about it and you have an hour and a half to decide.’

“That showed a real lack of understanding and empathy, as he was sipping his coffee on a Zoom call.

“If the ATP is going to operate tournaments in Dubai, where certainly I was aware there was a lot of geopolitical tension, some kind of crisis management on the ground would have been good, which we didn’t really receive.

“But it’s difficult and a really, really complex situation.”

Tour sources have told BBC Sport that they were focused on providing players with accommodation and support at the official hotel, having been advised the safest option was to stay put.

Patten and Heliovaara should have been among the top seeds for this week’s tournament in Indian Wells, which is the first Masters 1000 event of the year.

They could have arrived in California in time to play, but – short on sleep and practice at the end of a stressful week – decided their priorities lay elsewhere.

“We could have made it, but the reality is we just wouldn’t have been mentally or physically ready to play,” Patten said.