The Australian Open 2010

January is the time for Melbourne to play host to the first Tennis Grand Slam event of the year and this year, I got to go.

As many of you know, our mate Katie works for Tennis NZ which meant she was able to get her hands on a load of freebie tickets. All we needed to do was get ourselves over to Oz. Sadly Iain is in the grip of pre-season with The Blues at the moment so it meant I headed 'over the ditch' on my own to meet Katie and Steph who were travelling from Wellington. Another twist in the tale was that Steph's brother, Paul, was flying over from Scotland to surprise him in Melbourne. Katie and I had planned the whole adventure but my flight was delayed 10hours from Auckland (don't fly Pacific Blue!) so it was a bit of a slow start to the trip! I finally arrived at about 8.30pm by which point Paul had done the Big Reveal and they were all getting stuck into the local tipple, John Boags.

Monday 18th was the first day of competition and we were there to lap up as much as possible. Despite us not being enormous tennis fans, all four of us were blown away by the event from the minute we arrived there. They just know how to put on a show. AUS$30 (about 15quid) gets you a ground pass and you are free to wander around all the outdoor courts with access to three show courts and the tented village where there is free entertainment all day. Another $20 will let you upgrade to the Hisence Arena (2nd top arena) and access to the Rod Laver - 'Centre Court' costs $70. The place was buzzing and we couldn't wait to get in to see some matches.

After a look through the schedule, we decided on an upgrade and spent most of the day in the Hisence, watching:

Andy Roddick v Thiemo de Bakker

Michael Russel v Juan Martin Del Potro

Kirsten Flipken v Justine Henin and finally (a very late match!) Elena Dementieva v Vera Dushevina.

This is us leaving, totally shattered, at the end of the first day.

Good times!