AO 2015 - Day 1

Hello guys. The first day of the tournament. I arrived at around 9.30, half an hour before the gates opened and there was already a queue. They had some sort of ceremony of the steps to Rod Laver Area. Boris Becker and a ball girl carried the trophies up the stairs. News stations where filming the fans.

When they let us in I headed to Stefi’s practice. As usual she was hitting with Mandy Minella. Also on the court was her opponent, Parmentier who was just hitting with her coach. Nothing exciting happened apart from it starting off quite cool and then got hot quickly. I took some photos.

After the quick hit out they had to leave the court so that the first match could begin (this match eventually took 5 sets and it was a long wait for Stefi’s match).

I went inside Hisense Arena to watch Bencic v Görges. It’s great that they have upgraded MCA so that now you can get into HA with a grounds pass. Plus the stadium less empty when you don’t need to pay more to enter. Unfortunately for Belinda she didn’t play very well and Julia was fantastic so she won comfortably in the end.

Then I went back to the other side of the venue where they have the outside courts and man there were so many people. I was not prepared for that. In particular the line to get into Jordan Thompson’s match was about 30m long. Luckily I got a seat to the Coric-Chardy match. So Coric is a young Croatian guy who is another youngster to watch (the AO website also told me to watch Bencic).

I thought Berankis was about to win so I left that match before they finished. It turned out that Berankis would lose the 4^th set TB so I just went to sit in the shade and watched the end of the Ivanovic match on the big screen. I can’t believe she lost. Then Lisicki also lost. Seeds were falling all around me.

Finally time to see Stefi’s match. In the first set she came out with all guns blazing and quickly raced to win the first set in about 22 minutes or so. The second set Parmentier lifted her game and it was tight until Stefi got broken toward the end of the set. In the third Stefi served first and broke in the second game. At 4*-3 she was down 0-40 and ended up holding serve which was crucial. Throughout the whole match I didn’t have a feeling that she was going to lose and I would feel that way if Pauline had broken to level at 4 all. Thankfully that didn’t happen. I was so relieved that she won. It would be so amazing if she can beat Bouchard in round 3 – but we will just take it one match at a time. Caro Garcia is next.

After that match I went into a few matches and walked around a bit to see the end of Kerber’s tournament on the tv. So disappointing (she was another player I had in my fantasy team). I was going to see Kokkinakis-Gulbis but I couldn’t be bothered queueing and I wanted to eat so I left at around 7.15pm. 

A recap of the rest of Syd and one day in Melb

Apologies for the tardiness in posting for the rest of the tournament. A direct result of the later start times meant that by the time I got home, it was already quite late.

Nothing particularly amazing happened. It wasn’t extremely hot, there wasn’t any further rain delays. Towards the end of the week as fewer players remained the practice courts weren’t very exciting as the losing players made their way to Melbourne.

Most of the days started much the same. I arrive at the venue in the afternoon just in time to see Delpo. People at the gates hand off freebies (bracelet, seat cushion, water, fan, paper visor, wristbands). It was great to see Delpo back on tour and how much the wins meant to him. Today will be the same. Delpo first match of the day. A nice routine.

Apart from all of Delpo's matches I watched some doubles on Tuesday. Some women's quarters on Wednesday and the men's semis on Friday.

You may have heard by now that the women’s final was an all Czech affair. Kvitova over Pliskova 7-6 7-6. It was good to see that all four semi finalists seemed to want to win the tournament whereas early on it seemed a lot of the other top players were tanking it.

Now I’m in Melbourne, temperature wise it is cooler but when there is sun it can get quite warm. I was in a rush to leave my luggage at the hostel and go to the qualies and forgot to bring my sunscreen. Lucky enough I saw someone I knew there and I used some of theirs. 

It was really great to see the emotions of players following their qualification into the AO main draw. My favourite was from Iokou a Frenchman who had a lot of french fans in the stands. I didn't watch any match in its entirety though and it was annoying that they blocked off access to the practice courts. I had more sleep last night than since tennis began in Sydney so I'm feeling refreshed and ready for the Open.

Cloudy with a chance of sun

Day 2 of the tournament was better than the previous day which was pretty much rained out. It sprinkled at times, disrupting the first match but generally the weather was ok. It was windy and sometimes really hot for a moment. I couldn't be bothered with sunscreen so my face and neck were a teeny bit burned but it's not bad.

On my way there it was raining so I stopped by IKEA. It took almost 50 minutes to get out of the place so by the time I got out of there and to the tennis matches had just begun. I didn't watch a full match of anything throughout the whole day but I saw parts of many. During the Petko match my head was going into overdrive, with two Vietnamese men speaking to me right (which I understood completely), some German men behind me (which I could only pick out some words but wanted to know what they were saying) and some kids to the right speaking in English. The only thing missing would be Cantonese then I might as well not be concentrating on the tennis!

I was happy to get Hingis' autograph after her practice. She is still the most popular player but instead of signing for everyone and walking past us to get off the court, she decided to cut across the courts of some guys who were practicing lol. That is legend status right? Later on Belinda Bencic was practicing and while I was taking pictures of her, these really rude people came and demanded to know "whose that". A spectator told them her name and they were tying to find her in the Apia magazine but she wasn't in there and the crazy fans got mad. Moments later Alex Dulgheru comes and the lead crazy lady goes "I know who you are, I'm a huge fan, I want a photo". So Alex took a photo with her. Then the crazy lady tells her friend "ask her who she is, I swear I'm right". Instead the friend comes up to me and shows me a photo of Casey Dellacqua and asks me if that's her. After the crazy mob leaves I could hear Alex and her hitting partner laughing about it because they obviously knew that she didn't know who Alex was. That was such a weird experience. But I got a picture with Bencic when there were hardly anyone around which was great. Before she gets too famous.

Following this saga I watched a little more matches and then went to the city for the Federer-Hewitt fast4 match. I am so over legends doubles so that wasn't entertaining for me. There was a performance of two songs from these The Voice contestants and then the exhibition match lasted over 1:30 or so. Afterwards they had an extended on court interview which was nice. It was so funny sitting next to a massive Lleyton fan she got so excited when Hewitt won a point. I had great seats in the third row. Around the court there were corporate boxes and I could see some Australian cricketers and Guy Sebastian which was a bit random.

Photos from qualies 2015

Petko

Kiki

Kyrgios

Hercog

Schmiedlova

Muguruza

Vekic

Babos

Stefi and Ivo

Vekic

Jaksic

Jarka with her minion phone

Domi

Highs and lows of Sydney qualifying

The first two days are done and dusted. The first day was really hot and sunny, while the second was more cloudy. Both days it poured in the afternoon. I hope that the rain doesn't disrupt play especially with the afternoon starts there won't be enough time/sunlight to dry the courts.

It is so crappy that they removed the stands opposite the player's chair on the outside courts and that all the seats are restricted viewing by the umpire's chair. It's so stupid and you can't even stand on the other side so I don't imagine that would end well.
 
Friday
It didn't start well as I hopped on the train and then realised it was the wrong train so I arrived a little late. First match I went to was Jaksic v Vekic. It was such a tight contest with great rallies. In the end I though Jaksic had it up 3-0 in the third set TB but Vekic ended up winning. Then it was time for Stefi's match in the peak heat of the day, I wasn't surprised that there were only about six people watching. She won comfortably against Arina Rodionova. Afterwards just walked around and that was it I suppose. Very quiet day.

Saturday
I arrived a little late again, but this time it was because the train was delayed. When I arrived Stefi had already started practising. She was hitting with a young boy. I usually see her hitting with other players so that was new. I took a bunch of photos since I really couldn't be bothered during the match. Ivo gave the kid some advice while they were hitting which was nice of him.

Then I went to the practice courts and just watched a few WTA players hitting and spoke to some fans. There is this guy who takes photos and prints them on their autograph and he was pretty much everyone which I'm so envious of but I really cannot be bothered putting effort into that. He doesn't know many players though so I had to tell him who everyone was. It is quite fun trying to figure out people.

Besides Stefi's match I watched from the second set onwards the Gibbs-Schmiedlova one. What a rollercoaster! It was like one player goes on a roll and then they implode. Anna looked like she was having trouble breathing or something and down three match points she would go for it and save them all, twice. In the end Gibbs won. After that I stayed for the Mladenovic-Dulgheru. I was sitting near Dulgheru's coach and there was a man who kept asking the coach questions like what is her string tension, her rank, if she is going to AO, etc. It was so annoying. The worst part was when he was telling the coach what she should do. I would not appreciate some random stranger telling me how to do my job.

I posted some photos of delPo on twitter so now I have all his fandoms following me and all these Spanish RTs. It is ironic that a few photos of him gets so much attention while I spend so much time looking for Stefi photos, finding out her upcoming matches and results etc. and after all these years we only have 850 fans. I guess it just depends on her, if she does well and more people know her she'll have more fans but on the other hand I don't understand how Conny Perrin for example has so many fans when she's not even on the WTA tour.

Sunday
Seeing as though most of the matches will be qualifying I decided to stay home. It then proceeded to rain all day and play began at 6pm when I contemplated heading there to see Bencic play but I decided against it. Hopefully she wins and I'll get to see her play Kerber in the second round.

Tomorrow until Friday I'll be at the tennis. There is rain forecast so fingers crossed that it doesn't delay play much.

The return

Here I am. Back for another year of blogging my tennis adventures. As usual, I'll be going to Sydney and the first week of the Australian Open.

Looking forward to Stefi's return to Sydney. It's been a while and in the past she has done well in qualies there. Belinda Bencic will participate in the tournament for the first time which is also very exciting. I'm also looking forward to seeing old faces/tweeps at the tennis, people who love tennis as much as I do.

This year Sydney has changed their format so instead of having a day and night, they will have twilight sessions starting 3pm or so. In theory that sounds good. Less play during the heat of the day and better atmosphere. I can also get some stuff done and run errands before going to the tennis. On the other hand I don't yet know how I feel about having to wait hours until the gates open.

I am super excited to return to Melbourne. It is a fantastic city. I expect to go to at least one Minella practice session, every year Voegele practices with her without fail. Despite the quite awful experiences in a hostel last year, I'm trying my luck with a new one this time.

Seeing as though I'm 25 it seems still socially acceptable to be cheap. If it sucks/(since I'll be closer to 30 than 20) next year I will go to a proper hotel. The up side of only spending less than $400 on accommodation rather than $2,000 is that I have more to shop and spend on RLA tickets.