“I was there…in Melbourne!”

Andy always gets a lot of support wherever he plays in the world. Australia is no different and Alyce Jonhson wrote in with her experience from watching Andy at the Australian Open.I was there at Australian Open 2008, my first Oz Open adventure! I’d travelled from Adelaide to spend the two weeks in Melbourne with my main priority to see Andy play live for the first time.

My first glimpse of Andy was on the practice court on Tuesday afternoon. I had been watching Rafa Nadal practicing and overheard some girls say that Andy was practising on a court over by Rod Laver Arena (shirtless!) So I immediately made my way through the crowd in a slight panic wondering if he would finish before I got there. Luckily he was still hitting up and I caught the last five or so minutes of his practice. This in itself was very exciting for a long time Andy fan like myself seeing him in the
flesh for the first time. I snapped a few shots before he finished up and then had to go cool down in Garden Square!

The next day I was lucky enough to stumble upon him practising with Richard Gasquet. It was amusing to watch the hoopla surrounding Andy when he’s on the practice court – everyone swarming around to get a glimpse of him, people standing on chairs, everyone with their cameras out, people on there phones telling their friends to get to the court – “come quick, he’s shirtless!”, and security having to huddle around him
to usher him back to the players area.

I didn’t have tickets for Rod Laver Arena until the second week so I was lucky to see Andy play live… I’d missed the first set in his match against Kohlschreiber at RLA as I was at the Mardy Fish v Jarko Niemenen match, when that finished I watched the Andy match in Garden Square. I was getting really involved watching the match particularly with it being so close in the 3rd set, going to a tiebreak. It was tough
watching it sitting just outside the arena it was being played in and I was getting more and more frustrated when there were people streaming out and leaving! I really can’t understand why people would leave such a good match early.

After that 3rd set tiebreak I went into RLA to go to the toilet and decided to stand by a door and hope that the guy would be nice and let me sit in one the many empty seats to watch the 4th and 5th sets, luckily he was very nice and let me go in. It was so exciting to be watching Andy play live for the first time in RLA. The match was very
tense Unfortunately Kohlschreiber was also playing very good tennis and Andy just couldn’t break him. When it was getting late into the 5th set I kept thinking of the El Aynaoui match from 2003 and hoping Andy would get the same result. Unfortunately Kohlschreiber was playing unbelievable tennis and Andy just couldn’t break him.

I was so tense in those last few games of the match and in the final game where Kohlschreiber kept on getting match point on Andy’s serve I was feeling sick from the tension. It was very disappointing for Andy to go out in the 3rd round when he was
playing good tennis but there wasn’t anything he could do when his opponent was hitting so well. I thoroughly enjoyed my Oz Open experience and will definitely be going every year now and I’ll be sure to cheer Andy on, hopefully all the way to victory!

Thanks to Aylce for her entry. If you’re heading to Austria for this weekend’s Davis Cup, don’t forget to write to us at iwasthere@andyroddick.com.