Our first ever tennis game, live!

I grew up with brothers who love watching tennis. In those days it was Pete Sampras, Andrew Agassi and Steffi Graf. I’ve attempted to play some in Auckland but will admit I’m not the best when it comes to balls and coordination, hehe. I enjoy ping pong though – at least I don’t have to walk so far to pick up the ball when I miss it 😉

Yesterday we got to see Djokovic beat Del Potro, and the much-loved Federer losing to Berdyck. Jeez I didn’t realize how long tennis games last for ay. We got to Dubai Tennis Stadium in Garhoud before 2pm thinking the Semi-finals will start then. Only when the local players came out did we realize the main game was at 5pm! A bit misleading we thought – that they publicized it as 2pm and 7pm. But hey, if you got in later you probably didn’t get good seats anyways so no complaints there. Word of advice #1 – Don’t leave your seats altogether with your friend because it’ll most likely get stolen by other people. We watched grown men squabble in front of us because of this, it was quite amusing really. Good thing people are quite civilised here so no arm fights.

It was so hot yesterday. 30degrees! Good thing that I brought my umbrella. The couple sitting below/front gave us the thumbs up for providing shade to them as well. Not long after another guy moved closer to them, so they could get some shade. Word of advice #2 for next year – bring a little umbrella if you don’t want to bake. Do sit at the top row of the first section though so you still get an awesome view. We were smack bang in the middle so we could see the balls get hit left and right.

I’m not a big tennis fan but loved the Djokovic vs Del Petro game. There were some funny trick shots, and then there was the part when Del Petro lost his temper against the umpire, haha. Federer didn’t seem to play so well against Berdyck – and the overall game felt quite boring. Maybe we were just tired from sitting there for nearly 6 hours! You could tell 80% of the crowd was cheering for him with the guy in front of me who was continuing going ‘C’mon Roger!’. The lady next to me was so annoyed at this Federer fan, she told me she wanted to pour her coffee into his hair to shut him up. Hahahaha. (Don’t worry, she didn’t do it ;))

I didn’t quite like Berdyck though. At one point he was upset, couldn’t remember why, and threw his sweaty towel onto the ballboy angrily. Even at normal plays, he’ll just drop the towel on the floor instead of passing it to the kids like the other guys. Not a crowd-favourite but hey, he beat Federer!

Djokovic vs Berdyck tonight at 7pm for the finals. Hope Novak will win! Will have to watch this on tv, aw – didn’t get tickets for the finals. Don’t feel so bad now though because it’s not  him vs Federer, haha. Tv will do.

And to end this post, here’s a funny photo of Novak whilst he was resting. Hehehe.