Australian Open 2012 (Day 3)

I woke up with a start on Tuesday morning--realizing I had no idea what time we needed to check out. Plus, I was still groggy from going to bed so late (since we didn't get back to the motel until around 1:45 AM). But, we had just enough time to pack our stuff up and check out of the motel.

We decided to go back to the place we had brekkie the previous morning--but order less food this time. Well, sort of. Fede decided to have pancakes, which came with...2 scoops of ice cream. (Or "ice creams" if you prefer.) I thought it was a little strange that they served ice cream with breakfast food--but Fede was rather pleased.

On Monday, we had sat next to this woman from Canada who raved about the botanical gardens in Melbourne--saying they were the most beautiful gardens in Australia. So, since it was sort of on our way to the Melbourne sports grounds, we decided to walk through it.

We only saw a very small part of the gardens. I wish we had time to explore more of the gardens, but we had a match to watch.

The first match was a Lengend's Doubles match. Goran Ivanisovic was a complete ham. I sadly didn't take any pictures. But basically, he did everything he could to entertain the crowd--and everyone else just went along with his craziness. I think the umpire at one point said, "What's wrong with you?"

After the match, people had to come out onto the court to clean up the bird poop. Yes, they had squirt bottles and rags, and would stare at the court surface looking for bird poop.

The next match was between Azarenka (BLR) and Radwanska (POL). Whereas Radwanska dominated in the match we saw on Sunday--she did not do so well against Azarenka. I also have to mention that Azarenka has a really weird-sounding grunt. Some people in the crowd were making fun of her. But who cares what you sound like, if you win?

As an aside, I love the fact that it was so hot and sunny that even some of the professional photographers took shelter in the shade--rather than standing in the scorching sun for the best shot. The weather here is brutal.

Sadly, we could only watch the first three games in the match between Clijsters (BEL) and Wozniacki (DEN). We were stupid and bought plane tickets that left Melbourne too early--since we hadn't realized that our tickets would be for 4 matches.

This is Wozniacki serving.

This is Clijsters serving.

Then, we ran out of the arena to catch a cab to the airport--where we finished watching the match on TV.

Sadly, our plane was late--so we could have actually stayed to watch a few more games. Oh well. Next time (if there is a next time), we'll plan better now that we know what to expect.