Australian Open 2018

It’s been a week of tennis in our household, as the Australian Open at Melbourne Park started on Monday 15 January. I love, love, love the Australian Open (a feeling that has grown over our last five years here, when I first thought it was not as good as Wimbledon). When we first arrived in Melbourne and stayed with our awesome Airbnb host April, she had the tennis on non-stop on TV and we did get a grounds pass on one day. I just went back and re-read my post from way back in 2013, and the atmosphere and facilities seem to have improved a lot since then. The price of a grounds pass has increased in that time from $35 to $54, and that gets you in to all of the courts except for Rod Laver Arena and Margaret Court. Of course, all the big names play on those two courts, but if you get a grounds pass early on in the tournament you can sometimes catch some of them playing on outside courts or at Hisense Arena, the third big court which is included in the entry of a grounds pass.

Our first visit to Melbourne Park was on Sunday, the last day of the qualifying rounds for the Open. We went with my friend Jamie, who was visiting from London, and took Ella with us. It was free entry and pretty quiet which meant we could easily watch any match going on. Jamie is a tennis nut and filled us in on some of the younger or less well known players. We watched Aussie Bernard Tomic for a while (he was really the only player on that day that I’d heard of!) but he ended up losing. Tomic is known for being a bit of a brat and when asked by reporters if this loss represented a crossroads in his career he responded “I just count my money, that’s all I do. I count my millions”. So, like I said, a bit of a brat. 

Ella's first tennis match. She wasn't very impressed! 

Ella lasted about 15 minutes watching the match before we had to take turns walking around the grounds with her. We ended up just getting her some food and letting her run around in front of one of the big screens. I was pretty glad that the tickets we bought for the following week were for days Ella is in daycare, and didn’t attempt to bring her to the actual tournament, as I don’t think we would have been able to see much tennis with her around!

That Tuesday my parents arrived from Canada for their six month stay with us. Andy, Jamie and I had already bought grounds passes to the tennis for Wednesday, and my parents decided to come along last minute as there was a young Canadian player, Denis Shapovalov, playing that afternoon. We were hoping he would play on one of the outside courts, but it turned out he was playing Jo-Wilfred Tsonga on Margaret Court Arena, which you need proper tickets for. Swept up in tennis fever, we upgraded our tickets to Margaret Court when we got to Melbourne Park on Wednesday morning so that we could watch the match live. It turned out to be money well spent, for a few reasons. First of all, the grounds were absolutely packed and it was difficult to even get a seat on one of the outside courts. It was also really hot, and our seats in Margaret Court were in the shade, so we were pretty comfortable in there. But most importantly it was a fantastic match. Shapovalov definitely outplayed Tsonga, but played a few poor games at the end of the fifth set and ended up losing. Disappointing for us Canadians but a very exciting game to watch. Shapovalov is only 18, so it will be great to follow his career as he develops. 

Getting ready to cheer on Shapovalov

Tsonga vs Shapovalov

On Wednesday we had pre-purchased day tickets for Rod Laver Arena (a birthday gift for my dad) so were at the whim of the scheduling gods as to which matches we would be seeing. We arrived early and spent a bit of time exploring the park before heading into the arena. There were lots of cool seating areas, food stalls and big screens around the park, much more than I remembered from our first visit in 2013. In the Grand Slam Oval section there were themed areas representing the venues of the four Grand Slams: London, Paris, USA and Melbourne. We spent some time hanging out here watching tennis on the big screen, eating donuts (that was just me), playing table tennis and doing some virtual reality driving. There was also a pretty cool looking kids area nearby and a Tokyo themed arcade alley. I think you could spend all day entertained in Melbourne Park and not actually watch any tennis.

Chilling out in the Grand Slam Oval

We watched the first women’s match, Sharapova vs Sevastova (Sharapova won in two sets) before venturing out of Rod Laver to get some lunch. By now the temperature was in the high 30s and the sun was blazing down on us. Luckily we found a table in some shade and there was a (hot) breeze so if you didn’t move much you could prevent yourself from continuously sweating. 

Enjoying some cold beverages in the 39 degree heat

We went back to our seats at Rod Laver to watch Djokovic vs Monfils. By now it was 39 degrees outside and the sun was still beaming down onto the court. Monfils started pretty strong and won the first set, but in the second set he ran out of steam and by the end of the set looked like he was about to collapse. It was actually quite hard to watch, it felt like it was not right to have these two athletes competing in such intense heat. There was a lot of Twitter outrage about why they let the match go on, or why they didn’t close the roof. But this happens every single year, it is always very hot for at least a few days of the two week tournament, people are outraged, games go on, ballboys faint, but nothing seems to change. Anyway, Monfils managed to hang on for four sets, and even looked to recover somewhat in the fourth set, but ultimately lost. It was a bit disappointing to see two excellent players playing sub-par games due to the heat, but I am completely in awe of their strength and stamina. 

The next few days were a bit cooler in Melbourne, to the relief of both the tennis players and me with my pregnant belly! We've been watching the tennis non-stop and I'm really hoping for a Nadal/Federer final! We've got one week left of the tournament which means one thing for Andy and me… back to work next week :(