Bigger and Better Than Ever!

Here’s my wrap-up of the 2014 Australian Open. 

AO2014 has been incredible. I went to the grounds 11 days out
of 14 with a great mix of tickets for Rod Laver Arena, Hisense
Arena and Ground Pass access to the outside courts and big
screens atmosphere.

During the tournament I’ve been able to catch up with family,
long term friends, friends I know through tennis and meet new
friends from Twitter. The atmosphere has been great,
really friendly and there’s a feeling that everyone enjoys
being there.

Kudos goes to the AO organisers and all the staff including the
people at the gates, the people at the doors, the food vendors,
the promo people, the program sellers, the security team and
everyone else. I spoke to and interacted with a lot of people
during the tournament and every single one was friendly and
helpful, despite their long days and the heat of Week 1.

Also read Australian Open
2014 Week 1: A Fan-tastic experience.

Memorable moments

• Tomic’s withdrawal from his first round match against Nadal
• The antics of The Heard during the Tomic v Nadal match
• Seppi’s five set win over Hewitt in the first round
• Nishikori’s first round win over Matosevic
• Rafter and Hewitt playing doubles, well, for one round
  anyway
• The heat, the heat, the heat and the heat
• The cool change when it finally came
• The practice courts and everything about them. Especially
  on Day 9 when a lot of players are still in the draw and
  practicing, but the grounds aren’t as busy so you get
  relatively easy access.
• The Day 4 Day session which lasted all night and was a
  smorgasbord of great matches on the outside courts due to the
  weather delays during the day
• Bausta-Agut defeating Del Potro in the second round, and
  making it through to the fourth round
• Maria Sharapova’s three set win over Karin Knapp in the
  second round and incredibly hot conditions
• Nick Kyrgios’ match against Benoit Paire in the second
  round, which went until around 1.30am. Nick playing on despite
  heavy cramping, showing Australian’s who aren’t familiar with
  him the great potential he has.
• Ana Ivanovic’s wins over Sam Stosur and Serena Williams
• Flavia Pennetta’s three set win over Angelique Kerber
• The Women’s Quarterfinals, what a great mix of lovely
  players
• Eugenie Bouchard making it through to the Semifinals
• Radwanska’s three set win over Azarenka in the
  Quarterfinals
• Federer’s form against Tsonga in Round 4 and Murray in the
  Quarterfinals
• Lucky loser Stephan Robert winning a set off Murray in
  their fourth round match
• Kei Nishikori’s great form against Nadal in the fourth
  round
• Murray, despite not being 100%, rallying to win the third
  set against Federer in their Quarterfinal
• Nadal adjusting to his blister impaired hand during his
  Quarterfinal against Dimitrov and going on to win
• Dimitrov’s form during the tournament, showing his
  superstar potential to those who weren’t already aware
• Wawrinka’s five set Quarterfinal against Djokovic
• Berdych and Wawrinka playing in their first Australian Open
  Semifinal
• Federer and Nadal’s Semifinal, which felt like the final to
  me
• An ecstatic Li Na winning the Women’s Final, and Dominka
  Cibulkova being so happy to represent Slovakia in the final
• Stan Wawrinka defeating an injured Rafael Nadal to win the
  Men’s title

What memorable moments did I miss? Let me know in the
comments at the end.

GSG Attendance Summary

• Day 1 Hisense Day, RLA night
• Day 2 Hisense Day, RLA night
• Day 3 RLA day
• Day 4 Ground Pass
• Day 7 RLA Day
• Day 8 Hisense
• Day 9 Ground Pass
• Day 10 Ground Pass
• Day 11 Men’s Semi Final
• Day 12 Men’s Semi Final
• Day 13 Ground Pass

Merchandise Purchased

• Lacoste T-shirt, long sleeved top, bag and two pairs of
  socks (It’s fair to say that I love the Lacoste merchandise!)
• AO2014 towel was given to me as a gift (fair to say I also
  love grand slam towels!)

Suggested Changes for 2015

One of the things that I love about the Australian Open is that
every year they make improvements to make an incredible event
even better. This year certainly was, with extra seats in
Margaret Court Arena (the roof will be finished next year),
extra shaded seating areas, extra fans around the grounds to
keep spectators cool, a bigger AO Members’ Lounge which has
been really popular and a well publicised practice schedule
that meant easy access to even the top players.

After spending so much time at the grounds, here are a few
suggested improvement for next year:

• Extend the After 5 Ground Pass to be
  available on Days 7, 8, 9 and 10 so that people coming in the
  evening on those days don’t have to pay $39 for access,
  especially when there isn’t even a late match scheduled on
  MCA like there is in the first week.
• Improve the free Wifi; I was able to access
  it this year, which is an improvement, but it was never
  strong enough to share photos until late in the second week,
  I’m guessing because less people were using it then.
• Better crowd control at the change of ends in
  MCA. There are more seats now and the MCA matches
  are really popular but it takes a while to get to a seat by
  the time you squeeze past all the people looking for seats
  from the doors. Wimbledon has a great system where the ushers
  find empty seats and call people down to get straight too
  them which could be helpful for getting spectators in and out
  of MCA quickly during the change of ends.
• Resell Hisense tickets for charity if people
  leave the grounds, like they do for the main courts at
  Wimbledon. This would help fans access tickets for late
  matches at a cheaper rate, would add to the atmosphere in
  Hisense Arena and would support a charity.
• More scoreboards around the grounds; This
  year there were loads of signboards showing the schedule and
  practice courts but the big scoreboard was gone from Garden
  Square due to the renovations. The app is great for getting
  score updates when you have wifi to access it, but I also
  like to see the scores around the grounds, and on the RLA and
  Hisense scoreboards at the change of ends.
• The screens showing the Hisense Arena match at the
  edges of Hisense Arena have delayed coverage. I
  can’t imagine what reason there is for this (RLA screens show
  the RLA match live) and it’s quite disconcerting when you’re
  planning to go back to your seat, thinking a certain Change
  of Ends is coming up, then finding out you’re about 3 games
  behind.

Something else I’d love to see, which is a fantastic part of
Qualifying at both the French Open and US Open, is having top
players practice on the main courts. This is particularly great
at the US Open because Qualifying is free so having Roger
Federer practice on Louis Armstrong Arena means loads of fans
get to see him in action that might not otherwise be able to.
There must be reasons why the RLA practice sessions leading up
to the Australian Open aren’t open to the public but it would
be incredible if they were.

Photos

We took thousands of photos during this year’s AO and uploaded
as many as possible.

Here are the highlights. Follow the links underneath the photos
to view the best pics for each category.

So that’s it for AO 2014. Now we attempt to resume normal
sleeping hours, clean the bathrooms, restock the fridge, catch
up with non-tennis friends and get through the next 50 weeks
until it all starts again!

Thanks go to Kia Australia, IBM Australia and Grand Slam Tennis
tours for incredible tickets.  Thanks also to everyone for
reading my blog, sharing my articles, your tweets, your
feedback and your friendship. And as always, special thanks to
Andrew (@ballboy2012) for taking the photos, making the coffee,
carrying the water bottle and doing all the little things that
free me up to watch maximum tennis and write this blog.

Until next time

Grand Slam Gal

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