Oz Open

Written by: Staff on 17th January 2011

Oz Open

Andy Roddick fans on Rod Laver Arena |

Here we are on the other side of the world, eyeing up a brand new season and what has changed? Actually not a lot, now that you come to mention it.

Just as he was at the back end of 2010, The Mighty Fed is looking rather mighty, the jovial Djokovic is still trying to work out how to make his next move and threaten the boys at the top while Andy Roddick is still scampering along, three paces behind, hoping against hope that he can keep body and soul together

long enough to have one last stab at a major championship.

The women, meanwhile, are in their usual state of disarray. The young hopefuls do not seem to have either the wit or the muscle to take the game by the scruff of the neck while the older names spend most of their days on the comeback trail from yet another injury. This lack of a dominant force in the game is blamed on the “strength in depth” in the women’s game. Or it is by those who are paid to promote the women’s game.

Oh, and Serena Williams is still nowhere to be seen.

No, not a lot has changed during the off-season.

As the Australian Open opened for business, Fed took just 84 minutes to dispose of Lukas Lacko 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 and A-Rod took 16 minutes more to remove Jan Hajek 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. As you might expect, Fed was chuffed with himself – “I thought I played great,” was his assessment – while Roddick was trying not to get too far ahead of himself. Should he live up to his seeding as the

No.8, he would face old Fed for the 23^rd time in his career but with only two wins against the Swiss to his name, Roddick is trying not to think about the possibility.

“I’ve lost before that stage the last three slams,” Roddick said. “So for me to think about that would just be dumb. I don’t think I’ve earned the right to look ahead that far. I’ve put myself in position where I’m ranked 8. So to be pissed off about any draw that I created for myself in a quarterfinal, again, is not smart, not fair, it’s a little presumptuous. So that part of the tournament can wait

until that part of the tournament actually becomes a reality.”

Venus Williams was feeling much the same way. She reached the second round unscathed but a miserable 2010, she just wanted to think about her next round rather than the possibility of an open draw in Melbourne and no out and out favourites to claim the silverware. Anyway, she had other things she wanted to talk about as the Open got underway.

So what was it, exactly, that Venus was wearing as she sashayed past Sara Errani 6-3, 6-2 and into the second round? Well, judging by the amount of time she spent trying to pull her micro-mini dress down in order to cover her embarrassment, the answer was “not nearly enough”.

There was an awful lot of Venus on show and the limited amounts of blue and silver Lycra she had brought with her were not quite up to the job of maintaining a proper level of decency, decorum and dignity. After all, how can a girl be expected to win a grand slam title when her hemline is doing little more than keeping her throat warm? That same girl could catch her death of cold in the unseasonal chill of Melbourne.

A year ago in Australia, Venus was headline news on both the front and back pages of every newspaper as she wore her invisible knickers for the first time. It was a heck of a party trick and, riding the wave of media interest, she went all the way to the quarter finals. Coming back this year, she tried to tease and tempt the press by promising to show “more skin” but, when it came to the crunch, the dress was no more than short while the knickers were voluminous and very obvious. And as the male contingent in the crowd grumbled and looked disappointed, the world No.5 put on a more than decent display to oust Errani.

“It really was an ‘Illusion’ dress,” she explained, the illusion when I wear the nude shorts under. But at the last minute I decided not to. I just decided to wear the black ones. It’s just about focusing on the dress and not anything else. I mean, I had black shorts under. But normally like it’s all about the dress because it has a mesh and a satin kind of material. Of course, it’s all sports gear, and it’s all about that zipper, too. A lot of the focus of the dress is the zipper. So, of course, always I have fun designing my dresses.”

She was having a good deal of fun walloping Errani, too. After missing all but the US Open in the second half of last year due to tendinitis in her left knee, Venus has missed the cut anmd thrust of competition. There was also a slight worry that, now aged 30, she had missed the boat as well. Six months off takes a lot of coming back from for the young and spry but when a girl is approaching veteran status, six months away seems like a lifetime.

“It’s been so long,” Venus said. “Of course, I have a lot of expectations for myself, what I want to do out there on the court, but you never really know how it’s going to go until you hit the court and the match starts. It definitely felt good today to go out there and play pretty clean tennis.”

But if the players were striding purposefully towards day two, the organisers were running around in ever decreasing circles. No tournament is without its teething problems but the Australian Open has had more than its fair share of trouble this year.

The good people of Tennis Australia had clearly invested a great deal of money in improving the press bunker, building us new desks and giving us new TVs. As we limped in, bog-eyed with jetlag and exhaustion, the first thing we hacks looked for a remote control with which to change the channels and a pair of headphones through which to hear the action.

“Ah,” the good people of TA said, shuffling from foot to foot. “There are no remote controls this year.” This news did not go down well. “But,” they said brightly, “there are buttons on the back of the TVs… you can use them.” Picture the scene: 200 hacks kneeling on their desks, swearing at the TVs while pressing buttons like a mad accordion player. It is not pretty. And it is not working.

The headphones were more of a problem. Whoever had been sent with an open cheque book to the TV shop obviously got over-excited. The new flat screens had sockets and ports to synch with iPods and laptops, so enabling us to put our holiday photos to music and show them on screen, but they all lacked a headphone socket. That meant that all the interviews were broadcast in silence which, let’s face it, defeats the object somewhat.

There was only one solution – at dead of night and just in time for the draw ceremony, every TV was ripped out and replaced with a new one. One with a headphone socket. Alas, the digital feed to the new screens was utterly hopeless and produced a picture not dissimilar to the earliest silent movies: jerky, patchy and with every third frame missing. Cue more spending, this time on a truck load of HD tuners and recorders in an attempt to get a clean feed and a decent picture. With luck, TA will have sorted out the press bunker in time for the finals – but don’t hold your breath.

Topics: Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Sara Errani, Venus Williams