Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Australian Open experience

We made it over to Margaret Court Arena and saw no rainbow flags. The first day it was late in the day, though, so maybe the protesters had left. It was really hot both days so maybe they made their point and left. Or maybe they figured they were oppressed enough without the weather conditions and are waiting for cooler temps.
We did, however, get to hear the guys behind us use several derogatory terms for gay people while we were watching a match today. Cheers!
We did see Jelena Jankovic play Brit Laura Robson in Margaret Court. And Kuznetsova. And Gael Monfils.
In Rod Laver, we saw Federer beat a qualifer and Wozniacki easily dismissed Australian Anastasia Rodionova. Saw the battle of the French women with Marion Bartoli taking down compatriot Virginie Razzano.
Robson had too many unforced errors.

Jankovic sporting Fila now. (Other players with new labels: Stosur with Asics, Bartoli with Lotto.)
We've been watching on television at night too. The bummer is that it's Australian coverage, of course, and Jim Courier works for them. Quite annoying!

3 comments:

Diane said...

Who else have you watched? How difficult has the weather been for you? I've heard that being a spectator there can be difficult because of the weather.

ken said...

Saw Cibulkova. Saw Krajcek briefly.
First night it was warm and for some reason they had closed the roof to Laver and then opened it back up. We had seats in the sun but as it set, it got a lot more comfortable. Tuesday was HOT. It made it difficult. Some of the show sourts have these awnings over some of the seats but they don't completely block the sun and they are a commodity. Breeze helped a lot and being on outside courts that were less crowded helped too. You just have to embrace the sweat! They do a good job having water fountains all over the grounds. My family went back on Thursday and stayed in Hisense mostly. The weather was much better though. Cooler and a breeze.

Diane said...

I'm glad you got to go, and that you were able to embrace that much sweat. That would be a tough one for me.