Australian Open 2012 Reflections
Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 10:05AM 
Seagulls flying inside Rod Laver Arenaby Kait O'Callahan
Yesterday I attended my last match of the Australian Open 2012 and I’ve spent the past 24 hours reflecting on what I saw. It isn’t just the tennis you remember when you attend almost every day of a tournament. These memories will always stand out in my mind from this year’s Australian Open...
Crowd cliches
Attend a match on one of the big stadium on any night and I guarantee you’ll hear the following high quality jokes:
“GO... (insert name of player not present here)”
The most popular seemed to be “Go Lleyton,” yelled after Lleyton had long left the tournament.
“You can do it...!”
Said in Rob Scheider tones. It’s even worse when they add, “You can do it all night long.”
“I love you (insert name here)”
Usually said by a man, about a man (HILARIOUS).
Grunting imitations and calling out at inappropriate times (nothing like the sound of your own voice).
“OUT! That was OUT!” - said in the middle of a rally
“Linesman must have fallen asleep down there” - hilarous reply
Guys, there’s a reason the linespeople don’t sit up in row NN seat 464.
The merchandise
Want free deodorant? Join the endless queue of people lining up outside the Dove tent for their two cans. The Dove tent itself featured images of clothed women and a naked, dripping Pat Rafter (what a change).
It always amazes me that Nike and Adidas do not have tents at this event. Lacoste clearly does well, (their AO tees are a great deal) and so too the AO shop.
The conditions
The bugs.
The seagulls.
The heat. Oh my God the heat. We were seated in Hisense down the front row on a 33 degree day. Great seats, but our shirts were completely see-through in about 20 minutes. Many of those seats were empty. It is unbelievable that people can play decent tennis in it.
The tennis
We saw fifty matches, I won’t bore you with them all. But the following is a list of the very best and the very worst of what we watched.
The best:
Elena Vesnina vs Stephanie Dubois
Viktor Troicki vs Juan Carlos Ferrero
David Nalbandian vs John Isner
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Kei Nishikori
Novak Djokovic vs David Ferrer
Novak Djokovic vs Andy Murray
The very worst:
Friedrich Nielsen vs Kevin Anderson
Jelena Jankovic vs Laura Robson
Caroline Wozniacki vs Monica Niculescu
Nicolas Almagro vs Grigor Dimitrov
Julia Goerges vs Agnieszka Radwanska
Do you agree/disagree with any of the above? Let me know about it in the comments section below.
Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this past fortnight. It has been challenging at times, especially when filing posts past midnight, and I apologise if the quality hasn’t always been excellent. I’ve had a blast watching and writing about tennis. I hope you’ve enjoyed both these columns and the Australian Open as well.
A big congrats to Victoria Azarenka and the winner of the men’s final.
Photo: Getty Images
Kait O'Callahan also has her own tennis blog Any Given Surface. To follow her on Twitter, click here.
Reader Comments (1)
And it sure was hot, but I think the weather was another highlight - I don't think it rained once! It really does give you a new level of appreciation for the players though. Sitting in the sun is hard enough, let alone contemplating playing 3+ hours of tennis in it!
Also, nice once making it to 50 matches!!