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.

The end

I am sorry for not getting around to posting this sooner! I arrived back in quiet Canberra on Tuesday night so I've had three days of work and getting back into the routine.

On my last day of the tennis it looked like it was going to rain in the morning. I had shorts on and a light jacket. Eventually the clouds went away and the sun came out. I didn't want to put sunscreen on since I was leaving in a few hours. My legs were red for the next two days but now it isn't too bad, just sunburnt and very tanned.

The last day of tennis for me was surprisingly enjoyable. I used the last day of my 5 day grounds pass. I watched a couple of juniors play.

Zverev played against a Japanese boy. I didn't like his attitude in the first set, making his opponent wait ages at the net before he went over for the coin toss. It was worse than how long Rafa/Serena would take.

A Korean guy called Kim was playing on the court on the other side so I could see his points. He had a group of fans supporting him which was nice.

After Zverev lost the first set I went to the show court to see the french guy Halys play an Aussie. He definitely looks more mature than the other boys in the tournament. Dominated the second set to win the match. I returned to Zverev's match and he won the second set. The third was close with some fantastic points and it eventually ended like 9-7 in the third or something.

Next I watched a little bit of Jana Fett against the fifth seeded Chinese girl, Xu. Fett practiced with Bencic the day before so that was the only reason I know of her. Xu was interesting to watch. She has a temper like Cornet. She was so pissed at her team and kept yellling at them. She was also going to cry. I actually left the match at like 5-4 for Fett on serve in the third.

(For the record - Zverev won the boys title and Fett was runner up in the girls.)

Meanwhile Ivanovic was playing Bouchard so I went to watch the end of the match on the big screen. It was disappointing that Ana lost after beating Serena. I did a quick last minute whip around the AO shop to see if there was anything I wanted. I bought stickers.

So that was it, another Sydney-Australian Open done and dusted for me. Sydney wasn't good, I hope it will be better next year. I always love to visit Melbourne, despite the heat wave.

Stan Wawrinka

hehe

Jil Belen Teichmann photos

Tried to email these but the file was too big so uploaded them instead. She's a Swiss junior. Lost to the second seed in round 2 of the girls tournament.

AO 2014: Days 7 and 8

On Day 7 I had RLA tickets. I arrived at half past ten and walked around the practice courts. Saw Halep practicing then stumbled across Zverev the top seed in the boys tournament. What court my attention was the shirt he wore being the same as Harrison’s colourful one from Brisbane/Sydney. I stayed for a little while before heading into RLA.

I found my seats and it was the closest I had ever been to the court in there. Fifth row and right near the centre of the court. It was so close I can actually hear what the players are saying when they talk to themselves. The first match was Penneta v Kerber. Flavia played amazingly well in the first set. Angie won the second and in the third Flavia was able to lift her game again and take out the German.

Next up was Ana against Serena. The coin toss kid is usually a child who has won an under 10 or 12 competition. This girl’s favourite player is Monica Seles, strangely enough and I could see Ana was so excited. She had a chat to the girl while they waited for Serena to come to the net. It had been a really long time since I watched Ana play. The forehand quickly reminded me of why I became her fan many years ago.

I left RLA for a little while, not sure/can’t remember what I did exactly but when I came back Djokovic had won the first set. I watched the rest of the match. The post match interview was fun because he was impersonating Boris Becker.

Day 8 marks the second week of the competition and the grounds are so empty. Plenty of seats inside MCA unlike the weekend were people had to queue for up to 40 minutes to get in.

I went to Jil Belen Teichmann’s practice, she was hitting with Hon. I then walked around, not keen on going into Hisense to watch the Bryan Bros. Eventually I went into MCA just as Lucie/Andrea had their on court interview. The interview inappropriately asked Lucie about how she hopes Tomas will do. That was so random but she is so nice and handled it professionally. I was in the front row so I sat there for 30 minutes waiting for Dimitrov’s match to begin. I watched just over two sets then left to see Teichmann’s match. Her opponent is the second seed from Serbia and was too good. I left after some photos and 5 games and went into Hisense.

Stayed in Hisense for a while watching Barty in mixed and then two sets of Murray. Headed to the practice courts and it was empty besides Muguruza sitting on a chair and there was her coach, Martina Hingis and her husband. There weren’t that many people there waiting for autographs but Garbine just left without heading over to the fans which was quite annoying of her, even though I didn’t want her autograph. Even the top players wouldn’t do that.

Today I have a grounds pass and the schedule isn’t exciting. A lot of juniors and doubles. I should have gone home yesterday actually but I don’t really want to go back to work. Anyways it’s been a fun month of tennis watching overdose on tv, in Sydney and Melbourne. I’m now more tanned and looking forward seeing who wins the tournament and to the rest of the season. I will check out of this hostel soon (covered in bug bites), check out the Uni Qlo pop-up store and then watch a bit of juniors/doubles before heading to the airport.  

AO 2014 - Day 6

On Day 6 I arrived shortly before play commenced. Immediately it was noticeable that there were a lot more people compared to the previous days.

I watched Bencic practice, surprised that she was still here as she isn’t playing juniors anymore. Her dad was speaking to her in a language I didn’t understand. He wasn’t happy with something she was doing with the serve and she yelled back at him after a while. On the other courts two Italian girls were practicing, when they were done Belinda’s dad came over and asked if one of them wanted to keep hitting with Belinda so the one who didn’t have a match that day went over. It felt like a big deal, imagine being asked to hit with Serena or something. Belinda had three men on her court during the practice while the Italians shared a coach who left.

Then I went to Stefi’s practice. It was just some light hitting and then serves and returns. Nothing like how the doubles specialists practice. Ivo told me Stefi couldn’t move during her match against Domi as her legs were feeling very heavy. He asked me if I talked to Svenja recently and I told him that she asked what happened and Stefi laughs and said everybody was asking that. He said it was his fault that she played in the second match because he only asked that she didn’t play first, rather than play third (which would have started at 6pm due to the suspension of play). In hindsight that is easily said but the past has happened and the result could have been the same. As he is always saying she needs to work hard to improve. It is sad that she is out of the tournament but I shouldn’t complain with seeing double the amount of her matches compared to last year. They’ve been in Australia for exactly a month so I’m sure they are looking forward to going back to freezing Switzerland.

Then I went inside Hisense to see Nara squander a set point and lose the match to JJ. I stayed there for all of the Aga/Pavs match. Pavs played so well winning the first set and had an early break in the second then she felt dizzy, and lost the match. Aga was lucky to get through without a fight.

I left to go and watch Stefi’s doubles match. It was pretty shocking how poorly she and Magda did. They got a break in the first game and it was all down hill from 2-0. A chance to break back at 3-5* in the second but they didn’t take it. Magda didn’t serve well. Stefi didn’t really either. She was too passive at the net while Raymond cleaned up any volley opportunities. Heaps of ufe. Dani was solid with the backhand rallies.

When the match ended I went back inside Hisense to see the third set of Murray against Lopez. That was over so quickly as Murray raced to a two break lead and didn’t drop his serve.

For the night session I met my friend from Sydney who I hadn’t seen in a while. Azarenka won against Meusburger in 60 minutes. I cannot imagine how Meusburger even made the third round with that awful serve. Why couldn’t it have been Stefi against Vika out there? Then Nadal was in beast mode against Monfils. There were some spectacular rallies but Nadal was ruthless taking that match in 1, 2, 3.  

Days 4 and 5, AO 2014

Very sorry for the lack of consistent blogging. The internet here is awful at night and even in the morning the connection still drops out. I'll continue the story..

Days 4 and 5

The heat wave continues over the past two days but now it is finally cooler. Thursday began on a low but ended well. In the morning I went to MCA to watch Cornet play against Giorgi. It was early in the second set when Erakovic lost to Diyas so I headed out to Court 13 to see Stefi play Cibulkova.

There weren’t many people at the match and most of them were Domi fans. I usually sit on the side opposite the chair so I can see the whole court but I didn’t want to face the sun so I sat with Ivo instead. He was coaching her from the side line I was surprised he didn’t get called out. Yelling out ‘return cross’ turning around and giving her instructions in German it was kind of hilarious. Throughout the whole match he was giving point by point commentary to Heinz.

The match didn’t go well at all. Domi was finishing all the short balls, making winners and winning the let cords. I have never seen Stefi lose this badly before.

It was a horrible feeling, I don’t know what is worse to lose a match playing poorly or lose a hard fought match.  I was gutted afterwards and didn’t even feel like watching any other matches.

Luckily the extreme heat ruling had been activated and new matches/sets wouldn’t commence for at least two hours so I took this opportunity to go back to the air conditioning in the hostel. 

The great thing about Melbourne Park is that it is so close to the city, just a 15 minute walk or a free tram ride. Everyone opted for the tram. Back at the hostel I was able to finish reading a book about an Australian women au-pairing in Paris. The ending was so disappointing. She just quit and that was it.

Anyways I went back outside at half past five. Had some food and went back to the tennis. I watched a bit of Dmitrov versus Lu and then Cornet’s doubles. There was so much lightning they suspended play. The Monfils match was moved to Hisense so I went there for most of that match. While inside we could hear the rain pouring outside. When the outside courts were finally dry it was 10.30pm and I watched a bit of Petko/Beck in doubles. Kyrgios versus Paire was about to begin.

The atmosphere was pretty cool. It was my first time seeing the Fanatics live.

I left at 1.45am and went to bed at 2.30am.

On Friday I arrived at Melbourne Park at 10.30am.

Instead of my original plan to watch Barthel I decided to see Janowicz play against Mayer. It was all about the serving.

A group of Canadians sat next to me. The Genie Army were annoying. As David calls them, her legion of horny fans hahaha. Davis didn’t play well against Bouchard.

Walked around, nothing to see on the practice courts so I went into a sponsor tent and some shops, saw the end of the Babos/Martic win over Cibulkova/Wickmayer.

MCA – Roger-Vasselin was playing well against Anderson. Saw two games of Monfils/Brown in doubles before Minella began. I was hoping she’d win because it would be fun to see her play against Stefi tomorrow but alas they lost.

AO Days 2 and 3

Firstly my apologies for the lack of blogging/pics. I've been so tired each night and to make things worse the wifi here is horrible at night I couldn't even get online. I've been updating Stefi's fb fan page with pics but will probably hold off on the others.

Day 2

It was so hot, it reached 43 degrees.

In the morning I went to watch Stefi and Mandy practice. It was more of a gentle hit and a few serves, nothing serious.

Hercog retired down 0-1 after two minutes. I was glad to be out of the sun but disappointed that I didn’t get to see Cornet play.

Halep played well for the first time this year.

Stefi won her singles match 7-5, 7-5 over Mladenovic. Kiki had a huge entourage of about 20 comprising of Mauresmo, Dechy, Feurstein and others. Unsurprisingly not many people watched the match due to the heat.

Day 3

41 degrees but cloudy so it wasn’t that hot. Quite humid though.

I bought Rod Laver tickets to see Belinda Bencic’s appearance on centre court in her first grand slam.

It cost $90 to see bagels and bread sticks but worth it since I had a good seat in the shade, got to see the possible champions (Serena and Novak).

I left during Novak’s match and got Stan’s autograph.

Then went over to see Stefi team up with Rybarikova to win the doubles over the Aussie pairing of Dokic and Sanders.

Watched Stan win in 4 sets over Falla inside MCA at night.