Australian Open 2009

We've gotten a couple of queries about the Australian Open 2009, and yes we did go to 'The Tennis' and had a great couple of experiences. During Kristi's first week in Australia back in 2007 she was able to score a grounds pass and go watch the tennis while Josh was at work. This year we went a step up and bought tickets to Rod Lave Arena for a set of night matches during Round 2 of the tournament. We were hoping to see some of the big names like Nadal, Federer, Murray, Rodick, Williams.....instead we saw a couple local names which was sort of a disappointment but also provided some pretty good tennis. The first match was Jelena Dokic vs Anna Chakvetadze - Dokic was the Aussie, unranked and hadn't played in the Aussie Open in 8yrs but she put up a great fight and came out ahead. The second match was another Aussie, Bernard Tomic vs Giles Muller from Luxembourg. Tomic was the youngest man to ever win a match in the Aussie Open, but he was definitely young and didn't have an answer to the massiver serves of Muller. Its hard to win a match when the opposition is drilling 210+km/hr serves past you. Everyone was really supportive of the Aussie and it was a great experience for him to play on the centre court but he went down in 4 sets to Muller. Dokic ended up making it all the way to the quarterfinals of the tournament which was a fantastic effort so it was exciting to be able to say that we actually watched her early matches. Keep an eye out because she really seems to be putting together some good games and has started out 2009 really strong.

Our next experience with 'The Tennis' was on finals weekend, when they took the second court at Hisense Arena and turned it into a concert hall for two days during the mens and womens finals. One of our favorite Aussie bands was on the stage for the last day and the concert tickets also got you into the tennis area to be able to watch the mens final on the bigscreen outside the main court - music and sport on the same ticket, what a deal! The mens final ended up being the match that everyone wanted, Nadal vs. Federer so our inexpensive concert tickets ended up getting us into the main event and the buzz was really electric. The first act of the concert was teen sensation Gabriella Cilmi (pronounced Chill-me) who put on a decent show with some of her popular songs and some popular covers. Soon after though was what brought us there in the first place, The Cat Empire! This is the kind of band that Josh and his friends would have put together back at Luther, with some amazing horns, super-awesome drums and a middle-eastern/latin flavor for rhythms and melody. In short, these guys are danceably awesome. We had a great time grooving along with them and their hour on stage passed in the blink of an eye. Once the band left the stage, Nadal and Federer were starting their warmup so it was time to stake a claim to some space on the ground in front of the bigscreen with 4,000 of our closest friends. Every point was hard-fought and everyone in the audience outside gasped and cheered with the hits and misses going on inside the stadium. We didn't end up staying the entire time and watched the last couple sets from home with Nadal outlasting Federer in the 5th set.

The tennis this year brought some great stories, such as Dokic and Tomic, some great matches like the Nadal/Verdasco slugfest and the music that went along with it was the icing on the cake. The Americans also performed well this year with Serena Williams taking the women's title, the Williams Sisters taking home first in the womens doubles, and the Bryan Brothers winning in the mens doubles. It will be hard to beat the experience and we can't think of a better year to have experienced everything the Australian Open had to offer.