Match Point in Melbourne

For any of you who have ever had a conversation with me, you probably remember sports coming up at some point and time. And if you ask me some of my favorite moments I've ever experienced, most of them would involve sports. Chipper Jones' last home game, Pat Summit's 1000th win, and 2016 Florida are just a few of my favorite experiences. My passion for sports has always driven me to experience the best that sports has to offer. So naturally, when I gained a passion for tennis a few years ago, I wanted to see the best of the best. Coming to Australia gave me that opportunity.

As soon as I found out I was accepted to this program, my first thoughts went to what I was going to do. And for those of you who know me best, you would not be the least bit surprised that my first thought went to the Australian Open. The Aussie Open is the first Grand Slam tennis event of the calendar year, held at Melbourne Park in Melbourne. Over the years, it's hosted some of the great matches with players like Federer, Nadal, Williams, and Sharapova. I knew from the start that I had to go.

But then as I started to look at dates and tickets, I realized that I had a problem. The only weekend I could go was championship weekend. The problem there is that those tickets cost an arm and a leg, and I am college student who works just about 12-16 hours a week. Those ten dollar UT Football tickets are a bit more accessible for me, rather than those $300+ tickets that were on sale for championship night inside Rod Laver Arena. So I put it in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, it just didn't seem like it was going to happen.

But then I got to Sydney. And I started to see it on advertisements. And on the TV at night. It was everywhere. So not two days after I had arrived in Sydney, I sat down and booked a flight, accommodation, and tickets down to Melbourne. I was going to the Aussie Open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen." I feel like this is what was going to happen all along. I made the decision last April if I'm really honest, and this is something that was going to happen. And when it was all said and done, it was a great decision. I made a very quick trip down to Melbourne for the tennis, flying down on Saturday and coming back on Sunday. For my tickets, I ended up getting what is called a grounds pass, which pretty much lets you walk around all of the grounds area with the exception of the main arena. It wasn't the real deal like being in Rod Laver, but it was still so cool to sit outside of the arena with locals and watch a great women's final between Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and Simona Halep of Romania. Wozniacki won her first Grand Slam title in a three set thriller over Halep.

At one point in the match, Wozniacki and Halep got into one of the longest rallies of the day, coming in the seventh deuce of the point. A deuce in tennis is when the players are tied at 40 (three points a piece) and they have to win by two from there. A deuce can often have a lot of back and forth, and it usually takes a great decision on a shot from a player who has probably planned that shot in advance during practice. So with Wozniacki having advantage in the seventh deuce, she hit a lob shot over Halep that she just couldn't do anything with. A perfect decision after a lot of back and forth.

Sounds familiar.

Cheers,

Jonathan Johnson

P.S. Huge shoutout to another big tennis fan Dr.Miller for all the advice on tickets and Melbourne in general. Also a huge shoutout to my mother for not worrying too much.