AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2007
Within a few days of the Hopman Cup finishing here, it was time to head to Melbourne for the Australian Open. It was to be my sixth consecutive year at the Aus Open, so I was becoming a real veteran! Funnily enough, Lucy Hopman was sitting a few rows down from me on the plane...wasn't expecting to see her still around here but obviously she had decided to spend a few more days in Perth too. We arrived in Melbourne mid-afternoon, although our bags did not (grrr), and decided to have a reasonably early night as we were pretty tired. So not too many sightings today, just Radek Stepanek and his now fiancee Martina Hingis walking arm in arm through the Crown, Rohan Bopanna and his girlfriend, and Maria Sharapova (no, she was not with Andy Roddick) in the casino.
Thursday 11 January 2007
Thursday was the first day of qualies, and as you know, I usually go to qualies, but today was so insanely hot, I didn't fancy sitting outside unnecessarily when I knew the following week was going to be bad enough in itself. So I had to abandon my little qualifiers and took the easy way out by going out and about in Melbourne instead. In actual fact though, a lot of the guys I had previously supported in qualies were now directly into the main draw, which is good to see, so that means less people to support in qualies now.
In the evening, I went out with a friend and we stopped by at the restaurant where she works to say hi to some of her friends there. As we came out, we walked straight into Rafael Nadal and Feliciano Lopez along with some other guys. We said hola to them and Feli smiled and said hi, and Rafa said "hhhhhow are you?" with his wonderful Spanglish accent. Also saw Tommy Haas having a wander, as well as David Nalbandian with his entire entourage including coach, brother and girlfriend, sitting in the food court (of all places!) having ice creams! Didn't expect to see a top 10 player in that sort of food court (all the other top guys go to the exclusive restaurants), but good on him. We saw him later on in the casino, as well as Maria Sharapova again and Xavier Malisse who, as you will remember from last year, lives in the casino.
Friday 12 January 2007
Today I made the effort to go to the qualies, since the weather was a lot more pleasant. I went to see the match between Marc Lopez and Brian "Beach Boy" Wilson. Marc was winning so I stayed for a few more games. Marc Fornell, who had already lost, was also there to watch. After a while, I decided to go for a little wander to see what else was happening. I saw Gael Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga practising together. It was nice to be able to see their practice with hardly anyone around. Not that there's ever a huge amount of people at the qualies here, but this year seemed like even less. It's a shame that most people don't care about the lesser-known guys, because they're the ones that need and appreciate the support far more than the top guys. I also walked past some of the other courts and caught a bit of crazy Dani Koellerer's match, although he seemed to be better behaved today. I went back to Marc Lopez's match only to find he was now losing - I think I had effectively jinxed him by showing up at his match in the first place. So I decided to make the trek to the other side of the complex to see what was happening over there. There was a 4-way practice going on on court 16 between Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, Alberto Martin, Vince Spadea and another sparring I didn't recognise. Vince Spadea was his usual weird self but Ruben was very nice, as was Martin's coach, Marcos, who always takes the time to stop and talk. After that, I saw a bit of the training session between Frank Dancevic and Hyung-Taik Lee. Gisela Dulko was waiting to go on the court for her practice and for some reason when she saw us, she smiled and said hi like she recognised us...I have no idea how, but she was nice in any case! Florent Serra was also wandering around, he looked like he was a bit lost trying to get to Vodafone Arena. On our way out, we bumped into Dmitry Tursunov and he stopped and chatted a bit. I told him how much I had enjoyed his antics at the Hopman Cup and he was so so nice! He said he hoped his wrist would be ok, after he was forced to withdraw from Sydney...we said it was because of all the effort trying to put the boobs in his shirt!
Not much to report for the night - I only saw Feliciano Lopez sitting spaced out in the Crown lobby, David Nalbandian going out with his entourage, and Tommy Haas coming back from Kooyong with his girlfriend.
Saturday 13 January 2007
We headed down to the tennis centre again today. I bumped into Albert Montanes who is another sweet guy. He came and gave me 2 kisses on the cheek and I just asked him about his first round match. I also spoke with Nico Almagro's coach, Antonio, and basically just wandered around from one match to another. There wasn't all that much going on, so I left quite early.
At night we saw Gaston Gaudio, Juan Monaco and Juan Martin Del Potro having some Chinese in the food court (the same one Nalbandian had been in)...must be something that attracts the Argentines to that food court! Also saw Thomas Blake in the casino and Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, and when I went to say hi to my friend who was working in her restaurant, we saw Daniela Hantuchova and one of the Byran brothers (not sure which one) who were dining there with their entourages.
Sunday 14 January 2007
During the day I didn't go to the tennis at all because I went out with a friend, and at night there wasn't a whole lot to report either because I guess the night before a Grand Slam starts, no one is going to be hitting the town. Nevertheless, I happened to see Nicolas Massu sitting outside one of the pizzerias staring into space, Teimuraz Gabashvili, Anabel Medina Garrigues and her boyfriend Raul, David Nalbandian's entourage, and Olivier Rochus in the casino.
