Week 27- part 1 Melbourne

Joey, Rory and I were staying with friends of our Australian coach, Cron, and members of the Australian frisbee community. We didn't see them the first day as they left early for work. On Monday the 15th of January we caught the free tram into the Australian open tennis grounds. We had purchased grounds passes for Monday and Tuesday and a night session for Rod Laver arena on the Monday (this was because, based on past opens, there was a good chance Federer would be playing). When we first arrived we saw Pat Cash coaching American Coco Vandeweghe and on the next practice court, Maria Sharapova. She is very tall! I thought the best of the first round matches would be Kyle Edmund against world no.11 Kevin Anderson. What a match it proved to be with Edmund winning in 5 sets and later making it to the semi finals. Midway through there was a slight 20min rain delay and to begin with I thought I was cursed, having seen almost no tennis at the French open due to rain and also suffered delays at Wimbledon. Thankfully that was all the rain we saw.

At the conclusion of that match I darted over to the practice courts to watch Roger Federer practice as I didn't think I would have another opportunity to see him play. Joey and I found a match with a great atmosphere on one of the outside courts as we sat next to the Italian Davis cup captain to watch Paolo Lorenzi, from Italy, play Dzumhur, from Bosnia. The match wasn't amazing in terms of tennis but the Bosnian supporters knew how to make some noise! We quickly nipped out of the grounds to buy food before returning to watch Rafael Nadal decimate Victor Estrella Burgos. We didn't have amazing seats but it was incredible to watch the world no.1, how hard he hits the ball and how good his defense was. Thoroughly delighted we nipped over to an outside court to catch the end of Dustin Brown losing to Sousa. Rory managed to get Sousa's autograph after aswel. By the time we got home we went straight to bed, exhausted.

Day 2 was one to remember. First thing, Rory and I watched the beginning of Raonic’s match before he went to try get Federer’s Autograph and I went to watch Goffin play. I think Goffin is a wonderful player and uses everything at his disposal as he is quite short. Raonic ultimately lost but Goffin won in four. In the meantime, Joey had moved to the Hisense arena to watch Stan Wawrinka play. Rory and I queued to get in but missed the first set and a half despite there being copious seats in the sun. We may have cooked in the heat but it was worth it to see the three time grandslam champion. After Stan had won Rory and I went to watch Victoria Azerenka play. She had been sidelined for sometime having suffered a stab wound to the hand in her home but was now looking fitter than ever.

Roger Federer was due to play the night session in Rod Laver that evening but I didn't have a ticket and they were sold out online. I did notice when I went to see Rafa the night before that the barcode wasn't checked at the door, just the day and stadium. I decided to chance my arm. I took a screenshot of the ticket from Monday night and using Snapchat edited it to say Tuesday. I walked up to the door, showed the artwork and was let in. Now, all the seats are assigned so there was someone in the seat that I had been in previously. I did notice that the corporate seats at the front were mostly empty so I thought that I may as well go the whole hog. Long story short, I watched the greatest tennis player of all time beat Bedene from the fourth row in the corporate seats. A true dream come true. After the match, the crowd was treated to Federer being interviewed by Will Ferrell. The fun didn't stop there, I dashed out to see world no.5 Dominic Thiem play Guido Pella. It was a thrilling match including an amazing point with a long rally, Thiem chasing down a drop shot, being lobbed and then hitting a tweener winner! A truly special day.

Rory's parents happened to be at the open as well and had two tickets that they weren't going to use on the Wednesday. Rory went into the grounds first thing in search of more Autographs (he got Novak's and Zverev’s in the end and almost got Roger's), Joey went to find a long lost cousin and I went exploring the city and also in search of a map for our upcoming drive. I saw St. Paul's Cathedral and Federation Square before dropping into the information centre. They gave me a couple of things and then sent me to the office of the national parks. I met Joey there (he had no luck with the cousin) but they didn't have a map that was suitable. We had a look at some high rise buildings in the area and China town before going for lunch. We had Malaysia Laksa and Joey had a messy crab dish so had to wear a bib!

We walked along the river for a while before I went into the tennis to watch Nadal play Leonardo Mayer with Rory. Despite our best efforts, Mayer lost in three sets. We were sitting more in line with the net and it was unbelievable to see how much up-down Nadal is able to generate on the ball. From there the three of us were headed for the Eureka tower to meet Cron and an American player, Elliott. In this tower you can go up 88 floors to view the city of Melbourne. It really is a beautiful city and in the setting sun was even better.

While up there we saw the highest post box in Australia and were also able to go onto an outside ledge and feel the wind. Amazingly on this ledge they had telescopes good enough to actually watch the tennis and read the score! The five of us headed back to Cron’s parents house to meet them and his dog. His dad is very Irish and used to be a warden on the Wicklow way! Cron drove us to our accommodation where we ordered a HSP. A HSP is apparently a classic Australian take away which stands for Halal snack pack and compromises of meat, chips and sauces. It was a bit sickly. The five of us then played exploding kittens (very good game) before we went to bed, looking forward to our journey to Sydney beginning the next day.

You can see all the photos from Melbourne here.