AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2008
We arrived in Melbourne on Thursday evening, and were greeted by 41 degrees celcius. These days prior to the event were spent doing other things not related to tennis, however in the evenings we were able to spy a few tennis players here and there when we went out for dinner. The casino was home to the Belgians as usual, we also saw James Blake, David Nalbandian, Agustin Calleri, Juan Ignacio Chela there, as well as spoke to Mariano Monachesi, who is now Chela's coach. In other parts of the Crown entertainment complex, we also saw the Israeli players, Bryan brothers, Feliciano Lopez, Olivier Patience and Fernando Verdasco, but the main tennis action got underway on Monday, and we were up bright an early for it!
Monday 14 January 2008:
Before heading to any of the courts on day 1, if I had to describe Melbourne Park in one word, it would be BLUE. All the courts and tarpaulins had now become bright blue thanks to the new plexicushion surface I had already seen at the Hopman Cup...so now it was fair to say Melbourne Park looked more like a swimming pool complex than a tennis centre. After making the colour adjustment, we headed over to show court 2 to see Tommy Robredo take on Mischa Zverev, a dangerous German of Russian origin who I knew could possibly do some damage. I was proven right for about the first 2 hours, because Mischa played really well and Tommy was very average. I'm not sure whether it was because of the court, or maybe a lack of confidence after losing first round in Doha and Sydney, but either way, he was getting hammered, going down 2 sets to 0 and also a break down in the third. I was being reminded of some of the other times I had seen him play first round here in 2003 and 2004, namely against Wayne Ferreira and Gaston Gaudio, where he also had bad first round exits, and I thought it was going to be the same this time. However, to his credit, he was able to fight back and turn the match around, to clinch it in 5 sets. A pretty intense match to start off his campaign, and mine too...after spending 4 hours in the sun, I was well and truly burnt to a cinder. After grabbing some lunch and meeting up with some friends, we wandered around the courts and saw bits of other matches, namely: Nicolas Mahut v Jose Acasuso, Juan Ignacio Chela v Guillermo Garcia Lopez and Agustin Calleri v Luis Horna. We also caught a glimpse of Carlos Moya's practice, though it was pretty hard to take any photos because Rafael Nadal was at the other end of the court. And we know how big his bandwagon has become now. Thanks to the long 4 hour match, I felt like I hadn't seen as much as I probably should have on the first day, but by around 7pm I was well and truly tired and hot and ready to go back to the hotel. In the evening, we saw Nicolas Massu, Martin Vassallo-Arguello and Maria Sharapova walking around the Crown complex, but that was it.
Tuesday 15 January 2008:
Due to the long day yesterday, we didn't get to the tennis centre right on 11am today, in fact it was closer to 12.30, and I just wandered around to see what matches were on and who was practising. The first court I went to, Tommy Robredo was doing a topless practice with Lucas Arnold. I watched that for a while, but also went to see some of Albert Montanes' match against Alun Jones. However, it was really hot today, and my back was already a very nasty shade of crimson so I couldn't stay for long as it was just too unpleasant...again highlighting what I have been saying for years which is that the Australian Open desperately needs more shade for spectators, especially given the fact that the Australian sunh is so harsh and dangerous. So I went back to watch the end of Tommy's practice, as I was at least able to stand under a small tree there! After he left, Andy Roddick came on to do a topless practice, so that was worth staying for :) After that, we headed into Show Court 3 to see the end of David Nalbandian's match against Robert Smeets and see the start of David Ferrer's match against Edouard Roger-Vasselin. After that it was time for lunch, and as an aside, I'd like to say that I think it's good the organisers decided to encourage more healthy eating at the tournament by introducing the little health food store at Rod Laver Arena. Very nice sandwiches and rolls there. After gobbling those down quickly, it was off to court 6, yes court 6, to see Juan Carlos Ferrero against Nicolas Kiefer. Personally, I think this was very poor court allocation by the organisers. Two established players with great careers and large fan bases shoved out on court 6. Yes, it has a few more rows of seats than some of the other courts, but still nowhere near enough to cater for all the people that wanted to get in. Some people had to stand for virtually the whole match. It is ridiculous in my opinion and a bit of an insult to the players. I luckily managed to find 1 spare seat after a while, and was happy the Juan Carlos was able to win in straight sets. He was looking good, back to his nice short hair, and playing really well. Halfway through that match, a disgruntled, drunk German fan yelled an audible obscenity to Ferrero, which saw him get many retorts from the crowd...luckily, he was evicted by security. After that, it was time to make the hike to the other side of the complex to see the match between Dmitry Tursunov and Xavier Malisse. We only stayed for the first set, which Xavier won, but a friend told me later that Dmitry won in 5. We headed over to the twilight session on Margaret Court Arena between Fernando Gonzalez and Konstantinos Economidis. This is the match that made headlines in the news because of the crowd problems. There was a great atmosphere at the court with lots of Chilean fans everywhere and also a large pocket of Greek fans. After about a set into the match, everyone's attention suddenly turned to the Greek section where there appeared to be some sort of brawl. It wasn't clear what was going on, everyone just stood up and looked and started booing. Even the players just stood on court and watched, eventually calling the referee. Police came in and sprayed what we later found out was pepper spray to try and calm the Greeks down. I'm not sure whether it was warranted or not, but either way it provided a bit of "excitement" you don't often see at tennis. Luckily it wasn't as bad as the Serbian/Croat riot from last year. Gonzalez won the match, but Economidis put up a very good fight..and after that it was back to the hotel for me.
