When the Cheshire emerges...

I'm rather proud I managed to achieve this, but it was a slightly slow news week and I thought I'd write a piece on the Australian Open for publication. It was put in Saturday's paper, take a look if you like: http://bit.ly/114QEkf.

Because I still can't post more pics on here, I'm going to give you a link to my Facebook photos to have a look, so as well as the tennis you can see some of the amazing food I had and all the souvenir stuff I came home with (good thing I had only packed 14 kilos): http://on.fb.me/T37AZx.

I want to add that after I wrote my article, annoyed at the lack of Australian prosperity at the tournament, we had two title wins. I was extremely happy for Jarmila Gajdosova and Matt Ebden in the mixed doubles, while Nick Kyrgios beat Thanasi Kokkinakis in an all-Aussie boys final. Champions! I actually have a distant connection to Adelaide's Kokkinakis (never met him though), so was upset not to see him win - but Kyrgios was apparently unbeatable throughout the week. Greek power!

After I wrote an entry on the tennis prior to going, for a little while I wasn't sure if I had booked too much and would be over it by the time Friday came along.

How wrong I was.

I had the perfect mix of a week, tennis interspersed with more sightseeing (I never seem to be done with that in Melbourne still), friend catch-ups and shopping. The cousin I was staying with was surprised at how I could be out all day (easy, it's Melbourne)... it did catch up with me though. I was sick getting back to Dubbo.

I got one half of the draw right, seeing Andy Murray and Roger Federer in action twice as well as Janko Tipsarevic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Jarkko Nieminen and Tommy Haas, one of the sporting crushes of my youth. Wow.

Of the top females I saw Victoria Azarenka twice (whose noises - can you call it a grunt? - I could deal with), Marion Bartoli, Petra Kvitova, Laura Robson, Serena Williams and a doubles game with her and Venus.

No, I didn't see Novak Djokovic. And I watched Federer play Bernard Tomic in Garden Square on Super Saturday night after paying for an elusive Rod Laver day pass I found while searching on my phone knowing everything was sold out. Oh yeah, did you know the middle Saturday's called that? Just because it's always a sell-out with people buying all the day passes. Even the cheap ones. And true to the tales, there was a four-hour wait to get into the Heineken Bar area. Didn't go near it.

The Australian Open has always been an important part of my summer, looking forward to hard-fought battles, expertise from Bruce McAvaney and Jim Courier (and even Lleyton Hewitt, he knows his shit), and of course, seeing the best of the best. At tennis as well as athleticism and physicality. And after the first few minutes of being there amongst it all, I was already addicted.

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If enough of us shied away from conflict and confrontation, just imagine how much war we could eliminate.
Why?