Game, Set, Game

For a few years, I’ve heard people describe full tennis competitions as ‘games,’ even though a game is only one-third. This has perplexed me – there’s a game of rugby, a game of cards, but in tennis, it’s a match. With that said, I travelled down to Melbourne last weekend to watch many MATCHES of tennis at the Australian Open. Figured while I’m here, might as well check out the only Grand Slam (and yearly sporting event of significance) in the Southern Hemisphere.

After a flight on the luxurious Tiger Airways (enter sex clinic jokes here) and catching a few trains to East Saint Kilda (home of the Saints), I settled down for a long summer’s nap. My first mistake of the weekend was only one application of sunblock – and missing the ‘above-the-knee’ and upper arm areas – later revealing a baaad farmer tan and knee sunburn look. Guess that’s what nine hours under the Australian sun will do to you.

Now a few quick notes about tennis in general. First the ballboys and ballgirls. This is such an odd little setup, with these disciplined ball-retrieving soldiers tracking down every stray ball that’s humanly possible in a three-hour tennis match. How do they never trip, drop a ball or even sneeze during a match? I did learn that one actually relieved himself on centre court, resulting in a 40-minute delay. So they are human after all... Another strange one are doubles teams, both men and women. They slap five and discuss strategy after pretty much every single waking point, to keep up the team camaraderie I suppose. I decided to do the math on this one, and at a minimum, they would slap hands at least 48 times if they won every single point. At a five each, that totals 240. Then at breaks, they sit on their ‘bench’ without saying a word to each other. Huh? Not even a 'this water is good,' 'you're hitting your forehands nicely' comment??

Day one was court hopping between women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and a scattering of practices. I hardly knew any of these players, with the exception of an Australian female player, whose name I’m ironically now forgetting. But there were memorable moments, from the rambunxious young (probably drunk) Aussie fans to cheering on what I assumed was one half of an American team. Day two, I repeated the early start and met up with friends Mike and Laura, who proceeded to recruit me out of the sun of Margaret Court (Court? no, Stadium) to Rod Laver Arena. It was like being called up to the big leagues. Murray, Nadal...I know these people! Oh, and I was a sunblock Nazi on day two, so my awesome looking redness wouldn’t spread. Like day one, I managed to stick around until pretty much every match was exhausted, deciding to skip the end of a 'legends' match (four guys I never heard of either). The weekend of tennis ended with another attempt by Aussie fans to cheer on their country people to victory. In vain. They try so hard, they really do.

Another few great things about the Open is they allow you to take in food to the grounds and Melbourne is a centrally located city that really embraces the tournament. This allowed me to catch a free tram, grab a burger from Lord of the Fries and watch some of the night matches from Federation Square.

Why do I insist on leaving Melbourne with 6am Monday morning flights? 4am should never be a wakeup time unless you’re a fisherman. On to Australia Day....