I'll start where I left off - Friday night, watching the Roddick match. I ended up cheering for the losing American until the very end - 2:30am. By the time I packed my day-bag and killed some time, I didn't make it to bed until 3:30am. With about 1hr of quality sleep, I was naturally pissed when my alarm clock went off at 5am. But with no snoozes, I splashed some water on my face, grabbed a cab to the airport and headed south to Melbourne. Everything was right on schedule. And I was quite giddy.
9am. Shortly after touchdown, I grabbed a free shuttle to the Hilton across from Melbourne Park (yes, sneaky) and skipped along the fields of Yarra toward the grounds of the Australian Open. The setup is well laid out and very spacious.10:45am. Camera in tow, I snapped pictures along the way and headed straight to Rod Laver Arena. Tickets to the Aussie Open are hard to come by - I got mine back in November. All of Saturday's sessions were sold out. When I entered the stadium, I headed straight to the information booth to find out which players were in action. My ticket (for Rod Laver Arena) featured Roger Federer - but I really wanted to watch the matches on Vodafone, which featured Kuznetsova, Radwanska, Ivanovic, Djokovic, Querrey, and - Blake v Grosjean! (How could I possibly miss out on watching James Blake live from Melbourne?) I walked around the grounds for a while, meeting people, trying to trade my ticket. After about a half hour, I found a lucky customer, made the trade, and headed over to Vodafone.
11:00am. The tickets I scored on Vodafone were quite good! Much better than the tickets I had on Rod Laver. The Blake match was incredible. Blake had never beaten Grosjean - from the get-go, Grosjean's dominance was clear. Grosjean was passing Blake left and right, always guessing where Blake was about to hit the ball. Great anticipation on Grosjean's part, which gave Grosjean a 2-sets-to-love lead. Blake, of course, came back - for his first 2-sets-down victory. I was cheering like a madman - there were only a handful of loud Americans in the crowd - I was clearly one of them.
7:00pm. The rain was still coming down, which meant no outdoor play, but plenty of Vodofone action. After watching a few other matches in Vodofone (including Djokovic's straight set thumping of Sam Querrey), I overheard that there was an upset in the making over at Rod Laver. Federer was down 2 sets to 1 against Tipsaravic (another young Serb). I rushed outside, and joined the massive party watching the match on the big screen tv. Everyone was soaking wet, but content. The majority of the big screen gathering had ground passes that day; since all outdoor matches were rained out, most of the fans decided to drink all day. The crowd smelled of beer, chips and rain. It was a mixed crowd; not many Aussies, and mostly Serbs routing for Tipsaravic. When Federer won 10-8 in the 5th, a small fight broke out amongst the drunken fans, but it was broken up quickly.
9:00pm. Since most of the day matches in Vodofone were wrapping up, I decided to try my luck at getting a Night ticket. The night session on Rod Laver Arena was delayed a few hours because of the extended Federer-Tipsaravic match. Featured matches were Venus Williams vs S. Peer and Marco Bhagdatis vs Lleyton Hewitt. Tickets were sold out back in November. I thought I had a small shot at scoring a ticket. (Sponsors and players are given a certain number of tickets each night and since it was so late I thought for sure some tickets would be released). I was exhausted, and hadn't checked into my hotel yet - all reasoning pointed to "Steve, get a cab and get some rest" - but I kept wondering, "what if..."11pm. So - I waited in line for a couple hours. There were about 50 people in front of me - all crazy fans, just like me. I chatted with some guys in line, and we took turns getting the beers. As the time passed, the line got shorter. We inched forward, minute by minute, but they weren't releasing any tickets - people were just getting tired and calling it a night. When there were just 15 people in front of me, the ticket manager made the announcement that there was no chance in hell any of us would get tickets. She said (politely), "Just call it a night - it's late".
I loitered with a hardcore Hewitt fan (Greg from Perth) for a few minutes. Even though we'd been waiting for so long to get in, we still thought there was a chance at scoring tickets. We pondered for a little while and I had an idea - we ask the next people that leave the stadium if we can have their tickets. It seemed logical at the time, so we went ahead with it. About 10 minutes later, sure enough, an older couple was leaving. I asked them politely if we could have their tickets (that I traveled all the way from California, schmooze, schmooze, schmooze, etc) and they handed them right over! Amazing! I traded tickets earlier that day - and was given tickets at the end. Could it get any better?
11:30pm. I entered the stadium with Greg - Venus was almost done with her match. The seats were good, but we definitely had our eyes on seats closer to the action. (We were just getting greedy at this point). After Venus won, the crowd was sleepy, but there were no signs of clearing out. The stage was set for Hewitt/Baghdatis and the crowd was ready for something special.
The match was amazing. The crowd went crazy when the players did just about anything. The match never had a dull moment. Both players were on the ropes countless times. Jab for jab, punch for punch, the players were neck and neck. Even though Hewitt is an Aussie, the crowd really didn't know who to root for. The quality of play was excellent; the points were long, the sets were taking forever - and the crowd was secretly hoping for a ridiculously late finish. Because what's the difference between 2am and 4am? "Not a whole lot," says the 10,000+ fans.
The crowd certainly got what we came for. We snuck down to the 1st rows as the match got better and better. (I watched a replay on tv and you can actually see me behind the players in a few views). In the 4th set, just when we thought Hewitt was taking control and a few games from closing the match, Baghdatis came back strong and stole the set in a tiebreaker. I've never heard such a loud tennis crowd (I was definitely playing my part!). It was nearing 4am. I'd stopped drinking beer a while ago and had switched over to Cokes.4:45am. In the 5th and final set, the crowd got louder and louder. One fan got kicked out for making Baghdatis double-fault at a critical moment. The crowd stayed on the feet most of the set (not a typical tennis fan position). Hewitt took a lead, and after blowing a few match points, Hewitt finally ran around a second serve and smoked a forehand return down the line for a winner. He fell to the ground, the crowd went wild. Out of control. It was 4:45 in the morning!
5:30am. Raining cats and dogs, I waited in line for about 40 minutes for a cab. I took the 30-minute cab ride to my hotel and checked in around 6am. Yes, I checked in at 6am. Freaking crazy. Even crazier - when I got up to my room and saw that I had a nice tub, with jets, bath crystals, and the works, I ended up taking a bath. Yes, I took a freakin bubble bath. That's how out of sorts I was. Didn't really go to sleep until around 7am.
11am to 5pm. On a few hours of rest, I headed back to the Tennis Center for some more matches. The weather was beautiful and sunny. I watched Ferrero, Nalbandian, Tsonga, Gasquet, Williams, Vaidisova, Niemenin, Kohlschreiber, Sharapova, and many more. At around 5pm, I flagged a cab to the airport and headed back to Sydney.
I slept well that night. :)
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