My 1st Aussie Open Experience

My 1st Aussie Open Experience
- Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The beautiful summer sun shone brightly as I walked through Melbourne’s CBD – central business district, or ‘downtown’ for us Canadians – and made my way to Melbourne Park for my first experience at the Australian Open, or any professional tennis tournament for that matter. I had no trouble finding it, as I had previously jogged by the facilities earlier in the week. I knew I was in for a good night when I rounded the bend and turned onto none other than Batman Avenue. I knew the Aussie Open was a Grand Slam, but had no idea it was going to be a SUPER AWESOME Grand Slam!

The tennis centre is called Melbourne Park, and it is massive – it holds 28 courts, plus two arenas – Rod Laver and Hisense Arenas, which hold 14,820 and 10,500 spectators respectively. Tickets are available as day or night passes to the grounds, and at $39 is a great value, as it allows you to wander around and sit in on any of the matches on the outside courts. If I had my act together earlier in the day I would have caught Canadian Milos Raonic win his 1st round match in four sets. I’ll have to come back later in the week to see him play – a potential 4th round match against Roger Federer already has me salivating.

My ticket was for a reserved seat at the Day 2 Prime-time matches at Rod Laver Arena, and allowed me full access to the grounds from 5pm until closing time. I arrived early to make sure I could wander around the outer courts, have a snack and soak up the sun-filled atmosphere before heading into the open-air arena at 7pm.

Even though the $75 ticket price initially seemed steep, it’s actually a decent value when you consider that as the tournament moves on, this particular ticket price-point rises by about $20 each round, and then jumps to an unbelievable $400 for the Men’s Final.

 My first thought inside Rod Laver Arena was Wow – this place is massive for a tennis arena. It is almost the size of Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, and has many similar features. My second thought was Wow – the tennis court appears so small, much tinier than it appears on TV. And, also just like at the ACC, the fans don’t quite make it inside on time, continuing to trickle in during the 1st few games of the match - or, the near the end of the 1st set if you happen to sit in the Corporate seats. Funny, isn’t it - Sports is sports, wherever you go.

The first match I was treated to featured Australia’s next great hope Bernard Tomic (Lleyton Hewitt had already lost his 1st round match and is inching slowly toward retirement). Tomic, a 20-year old Aussie hotshot was facing the infamous Leonardo Mayer of Argentina. Tomic is your typical meathead Tennis prodigy. He’s known for having run-ins with the police driving his Ferrari, for having multiple model girlfriends, for having difficult relationships with his friends, his father, and indeed Australian Tennis and its head honcho, Pat Rafter.

His opponent Mayer is similarly hilarious – surely he must be the life of the party, because he rocked up to this match with his right hand and wrist heavily taped up, as if entering the ring for a prize-fight. Turns out he partied a little too hard on New Year’s Eve and lit a Firework on fire while still holding onto it. Um, yeah. That gag never gets old. Many questioned why he’d even bother to play with a hand injury, until they realized that he gets $27,000 simply for showing up to his 1st round match. You gotta love tennis, huh?

Not surprisingly, the match was no contest. Tomic displayed loads of talent, effortlessly hammering 200km/h serves down the T, smashing crisp one-handed backhands, varying his pace and spin, and occasionally slapping rather awkward flat-footed groundstrokes that he is quickly becoming known for. Tomic easily handled Mayer and his burned right hand 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 in a measly 91 minutes, looking very impressive doing it. If he gets past his 2nd round opponent, Tomic will likely have the pleasure of facing Roger Federer in the 3rd Round.

During the breaks in the match, there was another battle going on, only this time in the crowd. I’m told that it’s an Aussie tradition, where groups of 10-20 men called “cheer leaders” show up with songs prepared, chants rehearsed, and sometimes props, all in the hopes of getting a laugh out of the crowd and of course, encouraging their favorite in the match on to victory. Although I found their enthusiasm and gags humourous at first, they became progressively more annoying as the night went on. One of the group’s signs displayed their twitter handle, but I won’t bother passing it on to you all here.

Dusk was fast approaching, and as you can see from the picture above the summer sky here in Melbourne is pretty frickin’ amazing. Back inside Rod Laver Arena, (All) the singles ladies match (see what I did there?) was about to begin, featuring Belgium’s 20th-seaded Yanina Wickmayer squaring off against local hard-luck story Jarmila Gajdosova, she of the 0-7 record in her Australian Open career. Think about that for a second. She’s a home-town girl, and at one point was ranked as high as 25th in the world, but yet she has never won a match in seven years of Aussie Opens. That’s got to weigh on you, don’t you think? Yeah, I really do think.

And to the surprise of no one, as if encouraging history to repeat itself, she suffered through the 1st set, spraying unforced error after unforced error before going down 6-1 in a brisk 26 minutes. Wickmayer barely broke a sweat in the 1st set, looking like a filly galloping around the track on a warm-up run. In fact, her strikingly fit 6’1” frame, decked out in black and hot pink with a severe blond pony-tail reminded me more of my kids’ My Little Pony dolls. (Apologies for the reference; my two little girls are fans…) See for yourself below:

The second set was a different story, as the Aussie leapt out to a 4-1 lead on the strength of several backhand winners down the line and a strong serve that forced Wickmayer into a few errors. Gajdosova looked poised to make this a three-setter, when all of a sudden the wheels came off and that oft-heard choking sound became evident to the members of the home crowd. Several double-faults and unforced errors allowed Wickmayer to sail through the remainder of the 2nd set, winning six of the last seven games to take the match 6-1, 7-5.

One wonders whether 0-and-8 is enough for Gajdosova, or if she’ll gut it out again next year in hopes of breaking the streak. She’s like that frustrating 1st-round draft pick with all the tools and so much potential, but who seems to lack the consistency or that certain something to put it all together.

All in all, it was a very pleasant night, and a very easy-going venture into my Grand Slam Tennis-observing career. I look forward to my next journey down to beautiful Melbourne Park. I think Raonic is playing tomorrow afternoon, I may just rock up and check it out.