Australian Open pt2
I have spent 20+ hours in the last 2 days at the Australian Open, and what fantastic hours they’ve been. If you aren’t a tennis fan you probably wont find much of anything interesting in this entry. Also, I took pictures of just about everyone I saw, way more photos than I’m posting on here. See my flickr page.
Ok then.
Saturday I got there at 11:00, saw Mario Ancic play Gilles Simon, Radek Stephanek play Fernando Verdasco and in between those games, check out the practice courts to try and see the top player practicing. This paid off big time, I saw Andy Murray, Fernando Gonzalez, Novak Djokovic and then, just after leaving a game that was tailing off, I saw Roger Federer. Got to watch him practice for 15 minutes, and then autograph a ball for me. Score.
The evening was even better, the night match on the outside court (one I could get in to) between Fernando Gonzalez and Richard Gasquet was fantastic.
Starting before 8pm and not finishing until almost midnight, the match lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes. The fact that I was starving hungry and freezing for the entire match took absolutely nothing away from the enjoyment of it.
A stunning match with fantastic tennis by both players, what looked like an easy match for Gasquet near the start ended up going deep into a 5th set and Gonzalez finally winning it 12-10. Epic, the match of the tournament so far.
On Sunday, there was no singles tennis on the outside courts due to the draw being advanced now so I watched a few doubles games and spent lots of time staking out practice courts. It paid off wonderfully again. I saw Federer for a 2nd time, and then Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, Venus Williams the Bryan brothers and then to cap it all, Rafael Nadal doing an intense hour long practice session that I watched the entirety of.
Ironically at the end of it all, Federer’s was the only autograph I ended up with, and I’m just fine with that.
So over the last 2 days I have eaten very little, drank litres upon litres of water and spent a surprisingly small amount of money to see great tennis and a who’s who of the tennis world. I’ll be back there for more on Wednesday for the Quarterfinals.
Tags: Australia, Travel
Adam
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