MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, January 20th, 2025
11.00: Ran into Ken Rosewell going into the Last 8 Club.
Ken, winner of 8 Grand Slam singles titles, and with a stadium named after him in Sydney (KRA or Ken Rosewall Arena) is 90 years old and still loving his tennis.
Back to back as we were, he stands just short of the 170cm listed on his “player profile”.
12.30: Watched Australia’s Number 1 Junior Emerson Jones survive an early scare on Court 3 beating the tall and big serving American Thea Frodin, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3. Both girls hit the ball very hard with no change of pace, therefore it was a case of who did it better was the winner in this match. Emerson Jones will need to learn some variety in her game otherwise she will struggle against the top players as they will just do it better.
13.30 Caught a bit of Jannik Sinner (ITA) play against Holger Rune (DEN) where Sinner was the victor 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Both players seemed to be struggling with the heat however Sinner in his press conference told us that he woke up not feeling great this morning, so didn’t warm up like he normally would, and got to the courts later than usual. He had to take a time out and took medication which made him feel better. The net also broke during the match, which gave both players a 20 minute pause in play. This helped Sinner more than Rune whose knee stiffened up. It’s likely Sinner just felt unwell but he seemed to have no interaction with his coach, Darren Cahill, during the break when the net broke,when they walked through the halls of RLA. (Rod Laver Arena)
1600: Had a chat with Pat Rafter (AUS), Tommy Haas (GER) and Andrea Petkovic (GER) who will play in the AO Legends on Tuesday 21 January. Pat is the founding ambassador for Padel and Tommy Haas is the Tournament Director at Indian Wells. Tommy in particular thinks the crowds have been OK though, he says at Indian Wells they are not as rowdy.
Petkovic said it’s tough with tennis because sometimes it’s quiet and then when it changes to be loud at different points of a match, it’s hard to adjust.
Generally now she’s older, she said she can appreciate how good it is to have rowdier crowds, as it adds to the atmosphere.
The Aussie crowd’s behaviour has been a talking point at the Australian Open but these legends generally think tennis needs to keep moving forward and be appealing to the new fans to the game.
They can see a big difference after Covid with more boisterous crowd behaviour at the Australian Open, though they can’t pinpoint why the crowds have been rowdier. Could it really still be pent up energy from all that pandemic time indoors??
The general ex grand slammers thoughts are it could be a case of younger and newer fans entering the game as well as the bars being positioned near the courts. They noted that people are drinking a lot in the early evening, it’s hot, and matches are running late, so fans are getting drunk.
It could also be because Melbourne was the most locked up city in the world. There seems to be an increase of homelessness and people acting out around the lovely suburbs of South Yarra. There is quite a bit of news since September on knife and machete attacks in the suburbs of St Kilda and Prahan.
