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The Ozzie Open
Janko TipsarevicDay 294 (15.1.08)
Today was the day for Mark’s birthday prezzie. As we had no need for anything else to carry, we had decided that we would go and enjoy the fact that we had arrived in Melbourne in time for the Australian Open Tennis.
Not exactly sure as to when things started and not in possession of tickets we went over to the courts early not sure if there would be a long line of other people there to fight for tickets! Luckily enough there was only a short queue and there was no problem with getting our ground passes for the day at the bargain price of $29 (around ₤12. These would allow us to view any matches on the outside courts and as it was still early on in the tournament (day 2) there would be quite a few seeded players on these courts. We only had a few minutes to wait before the gates opened and we were able to get into the grounds.
We bought ourselves a programme and had a walk through some of the practice courts stopping to watch Serena Williams on the practice courts. We decided to set up camp
The Ozzie Open
Serena on the practice courts on Show Court two where we got some fantastic seats right next to the players box seats.
The first match on court was a 5 set thriller where Janko Tipsarevic only just got the better of home grown hopeful Joseph Sirianni - an absolute cracker to start off the day.
The sun was scorching so slapping on the sun tan cream and topping up with litres of water we continued to brave the heat for the second incredible match. This saw Sofia Arvidsson knock out 10th seed and Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli. We had chosen a great court to watch and had been treated to some superb tennis so far.
The third match of the day was with the crowd’s favourite Marat Safin who played a young lad called Earnest Gulbis. Unfortunately this one was a little one sided with Safin taking control from the word go and taking it comfortably in three sets.
Having had a great display of tennis we decided to go and get a bite to eat and check out the action on some of the other courts. After devouring a delicious wrap we went to check out the action on the
The Ozzie Open
Serena on the practice courts Margaret Court Arena, to see what was happening in the match between Konstantinos Economidis and 7th seed Fernando Gonzalez. As we arrived, it was evident that all was not well in the arena. On the other side of the court some of the fans had been a little over zealous in their support to the extent that the police had come in and used pepper spray to control the offenders. It took a while for things to settle down but once they had the match resumed.
Even though there had been a huge upset to the game, it was testament to the players to come back on court and produce some of the best tennis of the day. The game resulted in Gonzalez taking the honours - a great way to finish off the day’s tennis.
We had been at the tennis for over 10 hours and we had loved every minute.
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