Qualifications wrap up

Although qualies are not over (there is still one round for the women and two for the men), yesterday was the last 'free' tennis day. Today Day 1 of the tournament begins with 3 main draw singles matches and a doubles match inside KRA. I'm not going so I can rest up (a big 2 weeks ahead - this time next week I will be in Melbourne!) and plus it's mostly qualifying anyways. I've been too tired to blog/upload photos after I get home so now is my chance to catch up :)

On the first day of qualies I became unbelievably sunburnt. I've never experienced anything like it. Ironically during the day I was checking my arms to make sure I wasn't getting burnt and I didn't realise my back was lobster red until I looked at the mirror. Hopefully it fades soon without the whole peeling thing but on the second day I was extra careful to seek cover. Hello cold showers and aloe vera!

There has been some positive changes to the layout of the site. After all these years they finally have the common sense to put the seating not facing the sun on Grandstand. One of the practice courts is now the kids interactive zone and the empty Court 4 has become a match court. The volunteers/ball kids/linespeople tents have also moved. The media centre is massive and looks exponentially better than it did, at least from the outside (their air conditioning is very noticable). The most annoying thing is that Court 7 still has no seating. They could squeeze in 2 rows of seating similar to the Australian Open. Or at least put some chairs out.

The matches have been good but it's just not quite the same without my favourite player here so I haven't been too invested in the result. Unfortunately the Pliskovas and Garcia withdrew but I still got to see some players I liked (Babos, Piter, Minella, Tsurenko) and there were some that I saw for the first time. The Americans (BMS, Lepchenko, McHale, Duval, Davis) have all been winning, while all the Australians lost in the first round. I wanted to see some men's match so the first one I saw was a Swiss, Henri Laaksonen. I also managed to watch about 5 games of Harrison's but the rest of the time I found myself sitting at women's matches.

Yesterday afternoon I was watching Feuerstein playing soccer tennis on the court, ALG doing drills, Timea playing a practice match while listening to these two coaches talking about the work ethic and mentality of some pros on the tour. They had a saying: two arms, two legs, a head and an arse hole. It is interesting all the insight they have and the life - travelling around the world going from tournament to tournament.