Australian Open

The next grand slam ( Roland Garros) is about to begin, so I thought I'd tell you about the Australian open. It is a bit late, I know..

After years of talking about it and hours of planning. Trying to find out what the best seats in the house are and when will Lleyton Hewitt possibly play? The time had finally come. The day before the tournamt started it turned out that we had won the on-which-day-will-Lleyton-Hewitt-play gamble, we would get to see him play. Why is this so important, you may wonder. It is because of Lleyton and his love for the game of tennis that, I gained a very good friend. Plus it would be his last tournament, considering the fact that he hasn't made it much further than round two in his past tournaments, catching him round one was essential.

You can sense that the tournament is about to begin because the whole vibe in town says, tennis!! It is everywhere you look and everyone is talking about it, there is no way around it. The wild card rounds had been going on for while so you could slowly get in to it. Even if you didn't have a ticket, you could still follow it on the big screen at Fed square.

On day 1 we (me and Anna) had a day ticket, which meant we could see all the games in the Rod Laver arena until 17.00. First match of the day was Robin Haase, being a bit patriotic. As we were watching his game a lot of noise came from behind the stand, as if one direction had showed up.. Turns out that, Nole was doing has warm up and had caught some attention doing so. Only to find out minutes later that, Milos Roanic is warming up on the court next to him and Rafa Nadal is an other court over. So much talent within 100m, it's almost too much to handle. It is a good warm up for us because the first big match of the day, for us, is the one and only Miss Serena Williams. She is as impressive in real life as she is on tv, maybe even more. Game, set and match for her without too much trouble. Next up is the Djoker, see if his warm up was any good. From where we are sitting we can see it all, without getting a sore neck ( left, right,left,right get it?) When you've been following the sports on tv, it is so weird to see it for real. As if it is not the real Novak Djokovic who is playing, but it is! He didn't have any problems and is through to the second round. Unfortunately that was all for the Rod Laver arena for day one but, the day is not done yet. Heaps of tennis going on on other courts and so a managed to catch the last bit of the Dolgopolov game and the beginning of the Seppi game. When I am sort of on my way out I realise that with my ticket I can also see Nick Kyrgios play, another Aussie hotshot. The game has just started and it is jam packed but I decide to try anyways. And it payed off, after only 15 minutes of waiting they needed someone to fill a seat.. I'll take that one thank you. The atmosphere in the Hisense Arena is absolutely crazy, I can only imagine what tomorrow is going to be like. Nick wins his match and all the Aussies go wild, perfect end of day one!

Day two is here and we get to see Lleyton Hewitt!!!! I've been watching tennis on Fed square all day just because I can and it is a good way to start the day. As I make my way down to the tennis grounds you can feel something special is going to happen. It is the talk of the day, the Hewitt- Duckworth game and will this be his last game? The atmosphere in the Rod Laver arena is electrifying, this is what we all came for, this is the place where you want to be tonight!! As Lletyon enters the arena everybody starts to cheer and shout c'mon, I'd hate to be Duckworth. It is a thrilling game and you can feel the tension in the air there's c'mons and let's go Lleyton let's go coming from everywhere. But he does it, he wins!! Rod Laver explodes in ecstasy, happy tears all over the place. I can't believe that I was there to witness it. I need some time to recover and catch my breath because boy was this exciting, I think I may have forgotten to breath… Victoria Azarenka is next and all I can say is, she is loud! I do not know how she doesn't end up losing her voice during every tournament. Her match versus Vanuytvanck isn't nearly as exciting and gives us all the time to catch our breath before we go home. What a day! Unfortunately Lleyton lost his next match but continued on playing doubles.

Lleyton, it was an absolute joy to watch play tennis for all these years. The sport couldn't have asked for a better ambassador. Good luck with coaching the Davis cup team!

Cheers,  Seabert