Almost all the things I knew about tennis until this point, I learned from Wii tennis. For example:
- In tennis, zero is not a number. It is not a civilized expression. Instead, it is called love.
- A ball hit really hard gets rings of smoke behind it
- Tennis players don’t have arms
It turns out that only the first thing about tennis is accurate.
Tuesday’s weather was blazing hot temps, savage sun, and a bit of wind. My pasty white northerner skin will definitely enjoy this.
We had grounds passes which let us in to all of the courts except for the main arenas. We stayed in sunny show court 2 for the majority of the day. We saw four matches, the last of which was by far the closest and best.
We were close to the court and had pretty excellent seats in the middle of the court behind the judge. Perfect for pictures.
And now, thanks to a day at the Open, I know all of these things about tennis and I am adept at keeping score:
- Audience members can only enter and leave during break periods.
- Everyone is incredibly quiet during play.
- Serbians seem to like to sing Ring of Fire.
- Being a ball child on a tennis court is sort of like a cult. The ball children stood with their hands behind their backs all of the time, unless they were in front of the cameras, and then they crouched. It was their job to throw balls to the players before they served. Occasionally they’d get hit with a stray ball.
- Dressing like the tennis ball gives players an advantage (Rhett admitted this is a made-up tennis fact).
The last match was the longest and the most interesting – and the sun had gone behind clouds at this point, so it was comfortable out, too. It was a heated match between Doi (Jpn) and Kerber (Ger). Many shouting fans between serves in all languages. After a hard-fought match, Kerber came out victorious.
At the end of the long, hot day, none of us were sunburned. Thank you, my SPF 60 Peruvian sunscreen!
Wednesday is penguin day!