The Australian Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis
tournaments. It was held for the first time in 1905 and since 1972 it has been
held in Melbourne, Victoria. The Australian Open was last contested on grass in
1987, before it was moved to its current location at Melbourne Park in 1988,
becoming a hard court event. The tournament is held in Melbourne in the
Australian summer, in the last fortnight of the month of January (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Open).
It’s a nice suprise when arrive at the venue in Melbourne
Park and discover that you actually do not need the grounds pass you just
bought 3 hours before! J
It turned out that being an ANZ Bank customer one can get the grounds pass for
free, however would still need to pay additionally if interested in matches on
the two main arenas – Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena. Fortunately I knew
someone who did not have a grounds pass, so I was quite happy and as we were
not in for the main arenas this time, all was good. 13th court was our
destination as Kaia Kanepi was up against Ekaterina Makarova (RUS). It was my
first time to see Kaia Kanepi play live, in fact it was my first live
professional tennis match ever. Unfortunately Kaia lost, but not because she
was playing badly, she was just tired, visibly. Just days after winning the
Brisbane Tournament she obviously would have wanted some more time off. Makarova
later also defeated Serena Williams (USA), but had to retire after losing to Maria
Sharapova (RUS) in quarter finals. It was a good game though and I am quite
happy to have gone. Especially because of the whole atmosphere at the venue and
in the city. Melbourne is all about Australian Open in January. And as I heard
the organizers have put a great effort to make the event more than just a
tennis festival, so there is a huge fun/entertainment open air area for
concerts, live broadcasts (if you just want to sit back, enjoy your drink and
have a good chat while watching the games) and shopping.
The second match for
Kaia was a doubles game with Julia Goerges (GER) against two Americans which
showed a whole different result. The girls enjoyed their game, had a laugh and
with a nice support and loud encouragements from about 20 Estonians (not to
mention the other supporters) in the audience, they won! J Too bad they did not
give their autographs for us...
Oh, when speaking of us, I mean a great bunch of people –
Andrew, Sirli, Tuuliki, Jeff, Katrin, Eva and ME! And then other nice Estonians
we met during the day. J
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