Kids Day

Today was a nice day. It was Kids Day at the tennis so those 16 and under got in free. There were many activities for the children and it looked very popular. The courts weren't completely packed with children so that was a good thing too ;)

It became quite hot in the sun but overall it was fine. Good match ups on the outside such that I only spent about 15 minutes inside KRA. This year Sydney Tennis changed their tickets - instead of $14.95 (previously $9.90) grounds passes from Sunday - Wednesday they have $20 'silver tickets' which allows access into the back of KRA. I bought my ticket online last night and it was at the very back row but smack bang in the middle of the court. I don't know why anyone would pay for a 'gold ticket' since the arena is never full and you can pretty much sit anywhere once you're inside.

My day started at Lucie v Fran's match, meanwhile an exhibition occurred inside the arena but it didn't sound too enthralling. The singing from Jai the x-factor kid (who Vika said was cute) sounded awful. Once Genie/BMS' match began I went inside KRA and watched 5 games of that. From my seat in the back row I can see Grandstand and the practice courts. I then went to watch Angie/Domi and stayed there for the entire 7-6, 7-5 match. It was a high quality match with some awesome rallies. Domi double faulted a few times at critical points, including to lose the first set. Afterwards I went to the smaller outside courts, watching some matches from the gate I saw Sventlana lose to Vavara, a few points of Vesely's match (Wimbledon's website wrote that he is one to watch in 2014. Anyways he lost to a German.), some of the Halep/Olaru v Safarova/Babos match, then nearly all of Vinci/Errani v Grönfeld/Lucic-Baroni.

By far the longest place I stayed at for the entire day was 3 minutes short of 3 hours at Cornet v McHale. Long rallies in every game. Alizé got so emotional over some bad line calls and Christina just returned everything that came her way. Cornet was up a break in the third and served for it up 5-4 but a contentious call in the first point lead to the loss of the last 3 games. Solid performance from McHale for making it through qualies and being able to back it up today. She also looked very tired but not a squeak came out of her. It wasn't until she was down 4-5 that she took off her long sleeve top! In the end she took it out 6-7, 6-2, 7-5.

I also have a silver ticket for tomorrow and that's probably it for my Sydney tennis experience this year.