Tennis Masters

---

2/8/08

This blog is a little over due. On the 2nd of August we went to the Tennis Masters in Graz. It was a championship held for retired tennis players. We think its held each year, and this year it was in Graz: featuring the one and only Pat Rafter. We were pretty pumped before we even the house (as you can see from the photos), it was also just a few days before Andrews birthday and we managed to get 2 for the price of 1 tickets. We picked up some face paint for 1 Euro and had Andrews Australian flag sent from Australia a few days earlier.
It was a really great day, very hot. When we got there at about 12, we found out Pat wasn't playing until about 4pm, so we just wandered around for a bit. We walked down a path away from the main arena towards some warm up courts and found Pat playing a friendly doubles game with a few Austrian celebrities. Things were pretty quite down here and there were about 5 people watching the game. I was very excited and couldn't believe how close we were to the star of the show. He had been in Graz's newspapers for weeks in advance leading up to it, but judging by this crowd apparently no one cares. The game finished and he started heading off away from us. We hit the bolt. We ran around the court faster than one of Pats serves and threw ourselves at his feet. Pat was surprised to see two Aussies there, and was very nice signing autographs and having a quick chat. Andrew even managed to get a Happy 100th Birthday card autographed for his mum's birthday (sorry Anne, Andrew made me write that). We headed off so excited that even if we had left without seeing another match, we would have been happy. We sat in the grandstand for a while watching another match, but it was just too hot, so we headed for a quiet bench under the shade to eat some lunch. Next thing we know, who waltzs up to us, but our good mate Pat. AWESOME. We talk about what hes been up to, his family, what we are doing over here, learning languages and stuff. HE IS SO COOL. Its during this time that people start to look at us and a guy asks if we can take a photo of him and Pat. A few minutes later Pat heads off to get ready for his next game, and the same photo guy comes back up to us and thanks us for the photo and talks a little about Pat. We realise that this guy, and others around think that we are friends of Pats - we like to think that we are. The Austrians think we are famous 😊
Pats game was a real fizzer. Thomas Muster, the Austrian favorite and much hyped about Celeb who is a tank, owns a helicopter and who we watched warm up for about an hour, pulls his hamstring on the 1st serve. I dont get it. He was as fit as could be 20mins earlier. There is no evidence, however I have come to the conclusion that the pressure for him to win was too much and he faked it. Big call, I know, but Im willing to stick by it. LOSER.
Pat eventually played against the up and coming number 1 Austrian tennis player, Jürgen Melzer. The game was great. Pat had a sip of an audience members beer when one of the serves was a little too fast. The game was good fun and Pat lost by a small margin. I cant remember the scores because this blog is 2 months old. Pat then went straight on to play a doubles match with some old guys, still on the main court. This was the funniest match I have ever seen and I was in stitches for most of it. Half way through this match, we hear Tomas Musters Helicopter start up. He circles the main court then heads off - probably to book a physio appointment.
It starts to get very windy and all of a sudden it starts to pour. The whole crowd basically leaves. We stay to the end and then head home.
Awesome day and later in the week we read Pat won the whole tournament. Sweet.

---

Photos

Getting ready...
Hoe-down?

Pre-game hangout
The place to eat and shop and hang

The Main Arena
bad shot on both our parts

Hot
Feeling hot hot hot

Loser
Dont cry Muster, your chopper still loves you

Cool Dude
This guy was absolutely hilarious and an unreal tennis player. I wonder who he is. anyone know?

Comments

[tilman]

fuck yeah you guys are awesome. love the new entries!