Getting there is half the fun

Australian Open 2007

The Aussie Open is going on right now for about 2 weeks. You can't escape the hype, it is all over the city and always on TV and showing in every bar! So Greta, her friend Rosina and I went to day 2 yesterday to get in on some of the action.

Tennis is big over here (well sports are in general). It's not like in Vancouver where stadiums are reused for different events and sports, Melbourne has a stadium for everything. So of course Tennis has it's own....and multiple stadiums! There is a whole park dedicated to tennis, with 2 large stadiums with retractable roofs, 2 smaller but decently sized outdoor courts, and a ton of small courts of various seating capacities, and even more practise courts! They really must like their tennis!

Here's an aerial of the grounds. It even extents off the picture to the left where you can just see the second large stadium. Insane!


Rosina, Greta and me watching a match in the sun. The stadium is empty cause it's too damn hot:


It's a good idea to go during the first few days of play because the big name players can be seen on the outside courts. We got a ground pass, which gets you into every match except for the main court where the tennis gods play.

We still saw some big names play though!...
David Nalbandian vs. Tipsarevic
Tomas Berdych vs. some Lee guy
Martina Hingis vs. Nathalie Dechy
James Blake vs. Carlos Maya
And some others I forget. Sharapova was playing in the center court, so we watched a bit on the big screen.

Nalbandian serving to Tiparevic:


The tempuratures were soaring, with a top of 40 Celcius!! (in Oz that's what you call the Maximum:p) It was painful just sitting watching the games, so I can't imagine how the players felt. They ended up evoking the "Extreme Heat Policy" which means play is cancelled on all outdoor courts. This leaves the two stadiums left, which they close the roofs on and crank up the Aircon. We waited over 3 hours to get into the Vodafone arena to see Hingis and Blake play, but it was worth it!

The 'small' 10,000 seat Vodafone arena: (the main court one is 15,000 seats)


Hingus creaming a french girl:


Maya putting up a good but fruitless fight against Blake:


The Jumbotron where the poor people can watch the big stars:


Waiting for the tram to take us to the train station after a long, hot, awesome day watching 'the tennis' (in Oz you must address every sport with 'the'):

Posted by Evan at 11:34 PM