Tennis

We were given tickets to the Australian Open (thanks C! ) and had an excellent evening there.  Perhaps it's a couple of years since I've been, but the there has been a lot of development in recent times.

Our seats were for the Rod Laver Arena, and although in the 2nd tier, they were in a corner block.   Having sat over the years in various locations, it now seems to me that corner seats are very satisfactory, particularly if you're not in the lower rows, because you can take in all the action without turning your head.

Azarenka

There was a delay getting into RLA because the day matches ran over time.  In particular, the Sharapova match earlier in the day had apparently gone on for a long time (I see in the paper this morning there's some controversy about the hot conditions most of it was played in).  So we had a few minutes to look around the outside courts, and saw a few games by Dimitrov who is apparently an interesting guy.    On the centre court, when play started (shortly after lightning and even a little rain had resulted in suspension of play outside), we saw Azarenka and then Andy Murray.


Their opponents aren't well known, but both played some good tennis just the same and the matches were interesting to watch. Murray's opponent was a French qualifier, who had possibly had never been on a centre court in his life, but the crowd warmed to him (as it had to Azarenka's) and by the third set he was lapping up the attention.

Murray

Outside court

Dimitrov

Rod Laver arena