The Australian Open Recap, Read It !!!!!!!

Yes, I have been a bit lazy and haven't updated this in a while.

The Australian Open was very enjoyable this year and unlike many people I don't cry when big stars are injured. Sure, it is disappointing when players like Nadal and Safin are out injured and they bring something to the tournament, but at the same time it gives other people an opportunity and more importantly for fans to go out and discover other players besides the stars.

It was a fun event, got to meet some old friends and some new people as well and enjoyed that. The Aus Open has a carnival and party atmosphere that the other Slams could not reach, even with free alcohol thrown in. It's great to watch the tennis and not have shitty TV coverage to worry about and one moment there at the scoreboard was great a Norwegian, Argentine, Serb, Croat and an Austrian just there chatting away, checking out the women and talking about different things in a friendly atmosphere.

Wimbledon is too staid and many people think the tennis season lasts only for 2 weeks, basically they use the word tradition to justify that they are special, when most of the facilities are outdated and many of the attitudes to tennis.

Roland Garros is great because it's the clay Slam and it's different, plus the crowd like to get involved in their own particular way. The thing is that the ticketing is a real problem there and the people aren't as jovial and are too smartly dressed and as for the US Open, well that will be another blog entry on that subject.

It's a transition time and now Baghdatis has graduated and from no one covering him to everyone loving him, the wheel has turned. So this part will be some of the stuff I couldn't find to put anywhere else.

- Santoro the quirky Frenchman with his unorthodox game was entertaining, as was his honesty and have to say he has a very hot wife and a beautiful daughter.

- Seppi the Italian from the former Austrian part, he is moving into the favourite unfashionable players list and that's good. Though the coach and his wife who is Andy's physical trainer have these two beautiful daughters. When he lost, they cried for about 10 minutes solid and it was sad to watch, but it was a tough match.

- The mad Russian Tursunov, a very interesting individual. He has a lot of talent in his game and the Henman and Robredo matches were pretty much the way he is. Though got to see the quirky side of him as well. His friend Andreev and Kirilenko were playing mixed doubles against Djokovic/Ivanovic in the evening out on one of the smaller courts. There were some Serbian fans sitting opposite him and "Tursy" was writing things on a towel at the back of the stand showing them to Igor and also heckling the Serb fans and it was good bi play between them.

- For those who remember from last year the funny incident with an online newspaper saying that Filippo Volandri had defeated Igor Andreev in the final of Palermo. The thing was that the match was still going when it was released online and they used the same scores of the semi final and quarter final for Volandri.

Finally thanks to someone reminding me of the article I found it and printed it and showed it to Andreev and he didn't get it initially. As he read on a bit more, he realised what was going and just shook his head at how stupid people are and we were joking about it. Then Tursunov says can you find an article like that for me that says I won a tournament, the only sad thing is that we couldn't find the journalist in particular.

- Chela getting a lot of support from Australians before the match against Hewitt and how a friend of mine Peta found him so attractive all of a sudden, but chubby Chela is alright and he had a good tournament as did Kiefer and Ferrer.

- The Chileans weren't around for as long, then again when all your players lose in the 1st round then it's not going to be happening for you.

- Peter Luczak had a fine tournament and just hope he can finally breakthrough to the top 100 and he is almost a Scandinavian, he has a Swedish girlfriend who is pregnant and spends a lot of time in Sweden as well. Have to love an Aussie that likes playing on clay.

- Seeing Mats Wilander and yes he is gentleman around the place along with Pat Rafter and Alex Corretja they are good as well, but Jim Courier, he was an arsehole as a player and he is still a dickhead. Next time I should try and get one of my gay friends to hit on him and see what happens.

All in all, it was a great time and will take some good memories from this trip.