Australian Open Day 1: Fifth Set Fever

I awoke feeling full of life this morning. The sun was shining on Melbourne and after a lengthy sleep I had finally recovered from the double whammy of the final Cronulla night out followed by the through the night bus journey. But most importantly, it was the first day of the Australian Open and I was more excited than a small kid who had just discovered that a faulty vending machine was offering him favourable deals on Mars bars. Today was the first of five consecutive days I'll be spending at Melbourne Park and I plan on blogging about each of them, so if you have no interest in tennis you may want to tune back in next week.

Up first was American Steve Johnson versus left-handed Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. I picked it out for two reasons. Firstly, Johnson was the number one college player while I was at university, ending his college career with a legendary 72 match winning streak, so I wanted to check his game out. Secondly, the matchup offered an interesting clash in styles and I fancied it to go to five sets. Johnson is an attacking player who crushes serves, bludgeons forehands, and knifes slice backhands. Whereas Mannarino is one of those players who makes you want to pick up a racket and give tennis another go, as he is slender and doesn't seem to have anything special at all. However, he plays the angles brilliantly and once he got to grips with the Johnson onslaught he rarely made mistakes. It was Johnson who raced into a lead and at 11.49am Mannarino's racket became probably the first of the tournament to be smashed. But at 6-3 3-1 up the American went the way of Mannarino's racket - to pieces. He served double fault after double fault, his forehand radar went haywire, and he lost the next eleven games to trail by two sets to one. Thankfully Johnson pulled it together and managed to draw the match level after a very entertaining fourth set. The first match, a five setter! Fantastic! Unfortunately Johnson's double faults returned for an encore at 3-3, the three he threw in during that game cost him his serve and consequently the match - one break was enough for the Frenchman to take the final set 6-4.

I immediately rushed to another fifth set, being contested by Finn Jarkko Nieminen and Israeli Dudi Sela. The atmosphere on Court 7 was raucous. A squadron of Israelis chanted after every point Sela won, including the genius "backhand down the line, backhand backhand down the line" after such a winner. They were opposed by a knot of jolly Swedes, who had adopted the neighboring Nieminen during their current drought of players. Joining this support was my friend Markus, a Swedish traveler I met in Cronulla who joined me for most of the day and enjoyed Nieminen's epic win.

These first two matches provided a brilliant start to the day and the rest was great too: Fabio Fognini impressed, the unheralded world number 63 Pablo Carreno Busta fought hard but went down in another five setter to the experienced Julien Benneteau, and in the evening Alexandr 'The Dog' Dolgopolov played the best tennis I saw all day. I truly had fifth set fever by the end of the day, as I concluding it by watching my fourth deciding set - Nikolay Davydenko edging net-rushing Lukasz Kubot under the lights, much to the dismay of five rowdy Polish fans.

The major talking point of the day was the heat. Well over 30 degrees Celsius, perfectly sunny and lacking in breeze, it stifled players and spectators alike. Players maximised time between points and the matches regularly became wars of attrition lacking in quality. The most notable consequence of the scorching weather was the far greater than usual number of double faults served. Playing tennis in the heat is both a mental and physical challenge, and lapses in concentration as well as a lack of drive from the body could be held responsible for the large number of double faults thrown in. As for myself, I got through the day by drinking about six litres of water and lathering myself in SPF 50 sunscreen. Tomorrow the heatwave will really kick in - it is forecast to be over 40 degrees and if I survive I'll be back with another blog post.

Steve Johnson in first round action at the Australian Open