The Australian Open: Tennis Time!

I love tennis.  It was the first sport I learned to play (thanks dad!) and even though my dreams of playing competitively ended in junior high, I love watching matches and hitting the court when I get a chance.  Getting to the Australian Open has been a goal of mine for a long time.  But first, I had to make my way from Sydney to Melbourne









Just after we landed in Melbourne, our plane passed by an Airbus A380 with the Qantas livery.  It's the largest passenger airliner in the world, and my inner nerd would love to take a flight in this giant plane.

After I settled into my hotel, I woke up early the next morning and caught a taxi to Melbourne Park, the complex housing the Australian Open and other sports venues.  Melbourne Park is situated on the other side of the Yarra River, which cuts through Melbourne.  Historically, winners of the Australian Open jump into the river to celebrate.

The two main stadiums are Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena.  Between them are food stands, activities for kids, shops, and practice courts.

Before I went into Rod Laver Arena, I checked out the practice courts.  They provide a great opportunity for the general public to get up close to the players.

 I saw new sensation Sloane Stephens, who beat Serena Williams in yesterday's quarterfinals.

I also saw Maria Sharapova, who is taller and more athletic in person than her frilly Nike outfits would suggest.












Here's Li Na (my early pick as a possible winner), hitting against her husband, with her coach Carlos Rodriguez watching in the background.

A wheelchair player was practicing groundstrokes on one of the outer courts

Here's Nadia Petrova preparing for her mixed doubles match.  I think she's one of the best players to have never won a slam in singles.  

It was a very hot morning in Melbourne, so the misting machines were a welcome sight. 

I made my way into Rod Laver Arena.  It's a smaller, more intimate space than Arthur Ashe stadium (the main show court at the US Open)  All of the seats have good, unobstructed views of the court.  The pricing of the seats is based on distance to the court and whether there is shade -- the stadium has a retractable roof, which helps cool the stadium on sunny days.

Rod Laver Arena, as seen from my seat

The first scheduled match was a men's doubles  semifinal match.  American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won in three sets.  Great job guys!  They did their traditional chest bump at the end.











Next up was Li Na and Maria Sharapova.  Maria had been demolishing her earlier opponents (including a resurgent Venus Williams).  But Li Na had Maria on the run with terrific flat groundstrokes.  Li Na has a history of choking under pressure, but not today.  Here's match point:

The Chinese fans boisterously waved flags in support of Li Na.














Next up was the number one seed, Victoria Azarenka, versus Sloane Stephens.  Before the match started, I spotted in the players' box Redfoo from LMFAO (Azarenka's boyfriend).   He's the guy in yellow with the giant afro and glasses.

Who is Redfoo, you might ask?  You've seen him before.  He's behind this catchy foolishness:

As I suspected would happen, Azarenka overpowered Stephens -- it seemed like Stephens wasn't ready for the moment.  Stephens is obviously talented -- she has a great ability to construct points -- but she was unable to capitalize on chances to win points in the first set and lost it 6-1.    But in the second set, she started putting more pressure on Azarenka.  She even saved 5 match points at 5-3.  Azarenka tthen took a very suspicious medical timeout -- it didn't look like anything was wrong with her.  I think it's poor sportsmanship to take a medical timeout just to make the nervous, less experienced player sweat it out.  Azarenka broke Stephens serve in the next game to win the match.  Azarenka's a terrific player, but she abused the rules in my opinion.






After the match, I headed back down to the practice courts, where I saw Spaniard David Ferrer preparing for his match against Novak Djokovic.



It was a great day of tennis all around!