Australian Open

This weekend, Partner-in-Crime and I took a quick flight down to Melbourne to fulfill one of the big ticket items on my Day Zero Project list - attending the Australian Open.

Though I'm not much of a tennis player, myself, I have always been around tennis. My parents both played on local leagues while I was growing up, the Grand Slams were always on in my house, and I had a dedicated love for Andre Agassi when I was in high school. P-i-C is quite a player, himself, and he used to fly to New York to see the US Open. We have developed a little tradition of going to a local pub to watch the finals of the big tournaments, since we don't have a TV. Asking him to make this trip was no hardship to his sensibilities.

We got into Melbourne early on Sunday morning, and headed straight to Rod Laver Arena via Melbourne's free Tennis Trams. As we got off, the conductor said, "all you lucky people going to the tennis get off here. Extra tickets may be left with the conductor."

We opted for ground tickets, rather than splurging on any of the fancy matches on the big courts. That was fine by me because we both just like to see good tennis, and frankly, on the smaller courts, you can get much closer to the action.

On Sunday, the arena was packed full, and it was spirit lifting to be in the atmosphere. Despite the crushing heat and relentless sun, people were in great moods. Kids and teens had faces painted with Aussie flags or tennis balls, and many people wore their preferred country's flags like capes. Aussies are vocal spectators (a hard to swallow breach, I must admit, in the tennis etiquette I learned as a kid) and rowdy blokes would break into the familiar chant of "Aussie Aussie Aussie" "Oi Oi Oi," even if no Australian player was on the court. The main tasks of the day were trying to keep some semblance of cool and avoid getting burned to crispiness. I have the utmost admiration for the players, sticking it out in that extreme heat.

One highlight of Sunday was a Legends doubles exhibition match featuring Martina Navratilova. Did any female sports figure loom larger for longer in my childhood? I cannot think of one. I got teary when she appeared on court, and even at her age, she was still the most skilled player amongst her younger colleagues, including the other Martina (Hingis).

Shade was hard to come by, and on top of the sun, P-i-C was battling the flu, so though I loved the idea of staying in the arena that night to watch Federer play the young Australian wunderkind, Bernard Tomic on the big screen in the midst of the energetic crowd, we retired to our hotel, ordered in spaghetti, and watched the match on TV. It was all we could manage, especially with a second full day of tennis ahead.

On Monday, the arena was much quieter, and we were able to park ourselves in beautiful seats in the shade for most of the day. We saw a number of good matches, including a heated women's doubles match where an unusual rule was questioned by the players so heartily that the supervising umpire had to be called to the court for consultation. That was a good soap opera!

On our way out, I noticed about a hundred ball kids gathered in the main oval. They broke out into a "flash mob" dance routine (though I use the term "flash mob" loosely, as the element of surprise is rather lost when the courtyard is full of turquoise-clad adolescents trying to look casual). Still, it was a sweet note to leave on.

Now that I'm home, I have been watching the tennis and checking the scores on my Australian Open app constantly. I feel like I became a small part of a story that I am compelled to finish.