Australian Open (January 20th)

Today was our first full day in Melbourne and we decided to take advantage of the nice sunny weather and head to the Australian Open. Melbourne is a very sporty town and refers to the Open as “The Tennis.” 

Federation Square

Most of the students took the tram to “The Tennis”, but I used the extra time this morning to walk through Federation Square on the way. Federation Square is a very interesting area that is thought to be the meeting place in Melbourne. It is fun to be around it this time of year because there are a lot of people hanging out and viewing the big screens to watch the tennis matches that are going on.

On our way to the Tennis

A short walk from Federation Square is Rod Laver Arena and the rest of the tennis grounds. This year we had a chance to get the students to Hisense Arena which used to be the main arena for the grounds until Rod Laver was built for the 2000 Olympics. Our seats were excellent, only about 10 rows from the court, the one bad thing was that they were directly in the sun, I thought I was going to melt but I am sure the students loved it. The tickets also allowed you to roam the many outer courts. Since this was the second round, many of the courts were in full force.

Rod Laver Arena

I can’t speak for all the students, but I saw many of them at the following matches. At Hisense in the morning, many watched number 9 seed and former number one, Jelena Jankovic from Serbia lose to Shuai Pang from China in a two set match. At the beginning it looked like Jankovic was going to run away with it, but she eventually struggled at the end and lost.

Inside Hisense Arena

The next match in Hisense was a fun match to watch between Feliciano Lopez from Spain and seeded 31 versus Bernard Tomic from Australia. Bernie was obviously the crowd favorite and was able to upset the Spaniard. Unfortunately for young Bernie who is only 18 and the youngest person in the field, his next match will be against Rafael Nadal the number one seed. I think Bernie will need a lot of luck on Saturday.

Bernie

Most of the students then made it to Show Court 3 to watch John Isner of the USA and seeded 20^th play Radek Stapanek from Czech Republic. Isner was obviously a favorite of the students being an American, but also because he was born in Greensboro and played tennis at the University of Georgia where he was an All-American. Isner struggled at the beginning, but found his serve and was able to overcome a first set loss with three consecutive sets to win in four. A couple of the students were able to track him down following the match and get an autograph. Needless to say, they were very excited.

Melbourne at Night

Some of the students concluded the long day of tennis by going back to Hisense Arena to watch the last match where Robin Soderling from Sweden defeated Gilles Muller from Germany. Soderling won a convincing three set match. Soderling is the number four seed of the tournament, but I would not be surprised to see him go far in the tournament. He won one of the warm-up tournaments in Australia before the Open by beating Andy Roddick and looked very good in his win tonight.