Davis Cup 2001 Final
- Melbourne -
by Susan
I think that for most of the ten days I was in Aus I couldn't believe I was there. I've travelled a fair bit, around the North American continent and Europe, but that loooonng flight to Aus convinced me that I was really going half way around the world. I flew on United Airlines, and if anyone tells you the tourist industry is rebounding, I'd be skeptical. The flights were half-full coming and going, but it did give us room to stretch out and the flight attendants did their best to make even those of us in economy class feel special. Of course, they didn't have much else to do.
Joanie and I took separate flights from LAX, but were able to meet up for a few drinks before our flights (as Sheena and Kathy will attest to from our phone calls with them that night), and our planes arrived at just about the same time in Sydney. And that's when the magic started. We were in awe of Sydney from the moment we first ventured out of the airport. It is absolutely gorgeous. It was a beautiful day, and at least for me, it was love at first sight. I called my husband and told him to pack up the kids and head to Sydney because I wasn't coming home. *lol*
As a further sign of the lagging tourist industry, our hotel (ANA Sydney Grand Harbour) allowed us to check in at 9 a.m., and we were shocked (and pleasantly surprised) to have been assigned a gorgeous room with a view of the Opera House. We had booked the cheapest room in the hotel, and thought that was definitely an upgrade from what we assumed would be the room next to the elevator and ice machine.
And it quickly became apparent that the hotel was fairly empty. The concierge was so helpful, and he got to know us over the course of a few days. When Kerrin called on Wednesday morning to say she couldn't pick us up on Wednesday morning, the concierge tracked us down in one of the hotel's stores. Now that's service! *lol*
We packed in as much as possible in the next few days. One of my favorite things was a four-wheel drive tour we took with a small group to the Blue Mountains, which are absolutely gorgeous. The guide was a Crocodile Dundee type and it was ROTFLMAO time for most of the trip. He gave us tips for surviving in Aus, how to order a beer and get served immediately, told us about "secret Aussie men's business," told us about the days when "blokes were blokes and women were sheilas," and taught us some great drinking songs. He also gave us hints on how to survive in the
wilderness, took us bushwalking in a rain forest, gave us boomerang lessons, pointed out the various flora and fauna, gave us a pretty in-depth history of Australia (from the Aboriginals to the convicts) and demonstrated that he knew a lot about world history. He even took us to a place where we could see kangaroos, pet wallabies and hug kaolas. And when he provided wine with lunch, I knew I liked this guy. :) He was an absolute hoot. And I knew we learned a lot because when any other Aussie
started to give us info on Aus, Joanie and I were able to say that we already learned that. It's amazing how much we learned. Hopefully Joelle and Leontine will get him as their tour guide on Friday.
And Joanie and I were totally delighted to meet Kerrin and her husband and David on the Monday night. They picked us up and took us to a lovely Italian restaurant. The food and the company were great, and after dinner, David drove us around and show us many of the Sydney sights by night. It was another highlight of our trip. Thank you so much, Kerrin and David.
I met up with Kerrin on the flight to Sydney --once again, Joanie and I took separate planes. We Americans are like the royal family, we like to travel separately. *lol* But we got into Melbourne at exactly the same time, as the two flights left at the same time, so it worked out just fine.
After we got to Melbourne, we went to Rod Laver arena to see the Aussie practice. Kerrin called ahead of time and learned it was opened to the public. Once again, thanks, Kerrin. It was so lovely to see that practice. Pat and Lleyton played doubles against Wayne and Todd. I never thought I'd see Pat again, let alone see them play doubles. It was lovely, and made even more lovely by seeing my Babbler friends. Robyn and Wendy were there, and it was so great to see both of them. We also met up with Chris, Andrea, Karin and several others. It's still a blur, but I recall meeting up with Woz and telling him how thankful we were for being included in this final. And he just said, "No worries." Thank you, Woz and Robyn.
Robyn and Marilag arranged a lovely dinner that night at Roberto's. Before then, Robyn gave Joanie and me a lovely tour of Melbourne in her car, hitting many of the highlights. I thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, and many thanks to Robyn and Marilag for arranging it. It was informal, relaxed and tons of fun. And the food was great.
Now, the food was wonderful. Unlike in Barca and Nice, I ate my way through Aus, and had some great meals in the process. Joanie and I found a wonderful restaurant in Darling Harbour, and I had the best scallops there. Our waiter was a film director by day, so we had him take our picture there. He had us posing and repositioning ourselves for the best possible pic, so hopefully it will come out well. *lol* I enjoyed the food at BBQ at Peta's, too -- although the school bus ride back to the hotel was perhaps the most fun. I had a lot of fun singing "I Want to Have a Beer with Duncan" -- at least it helped drown out the Dutch song Joelle, Leo and Marjolein were singing. *lol* It's a good thing we did a fair amount of walking or I would have gained weight this trip, but I got on the scale and found out I didn't gain any. Thank goodness. The ANA had a scale, but it was in stones. Fortunately I discovered later that my stone count was okay; I was a little nervous when I first tried to compute my weight from stones to pounds.
Many thanks to Peta for making her lovely home available to us for the BBQ, and to her husband Marcus for driving us to and from the George Powlett (where we were staying). That had to be a daunting task -- to shuttle a bunch of Babblers to and from their hotel, but he did it with grace and a sense of humor.
Now a word on the George Powlett, as it fits in right here. It wasn't exactly the ANA but it did have its moments. The people at the front desk are nice, but they don't work at night, so that's when we are on our own. Fortunately, they give you a number to punch in that will let you into the hotel at any hour. :) The GP also comes with a bird that likes to hoot loudly outside your window from about 2 a.m. until whatever time you decide to get up. Once Joanie and I got up, he would stop. He must have been able to hear us running the shower or something. It really is amazing how loud he was, as you could even hear him over the jackhammers that started going about 6 a.m. Deb says they've been working on the neighboring building for years -- either that or they resume construction whenever she stays there. Thanks to Deb for recommending the hotel, as it was a very good value, close to the tennis, plus a great way for all of us Babblers to meet up.
Now Joanie was an excellent travel companion. But for her, I wouldn't have seen half of Australia in one week. (She wanted to try to fit in
Cairns, but decided it wasn't worth the six-hour plane trip. *lol*) Every time we had a spare minute, we went on another Tour it seems. In one day, we took a city bus tour of Melbourne (although we slept through a portion of it -- there should be a law against tour guides with soothing voices), sailed down the Yarra River (that was a bit boring!) and got back in time to change our clothes to take the bus to Phillip Island to see the penguins. I think we even managed to do a little
shopping between the river tour and the penguin tour -- and we stopped at a lovely place for lunch, too. We missed picking up t-shirts at the pub that
night, but Kerrin offered to pick up our
tickets and t-shirts. Once again, thank you, Kerrin.
Now a word about the t-shirts. Things were fine if you ordered regular Fanatics t-shirts. Unfortunately, Joanie and I ordered the sleeveless shirts, but fortunately, we also ordered regular t-shirts as a back-up, because the sleeveless shirts were made to fit Brittny Spears at best. I'm not even sure she could have squeezed into it. And when several of the girls showed up at the tennis with earlier Fanatics shirts, we knew that Joanie and I weren't the only ones who decided to forego our sleeveless shirts. Seriously, one of our best laughs of the week was seeing each other in those shirts. We vowed that no one but our husbands would see us like that again. *lol* We decided that the shirts would fit perfectly on our Roos from Barcelona.
Other than the tennis, one of the highlights of our Melbourne trip was heading out to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade. We hemmed and hawed over doing that, but Chris convinced us that we should do it. Thank you, Chris. It's one of those things that you have to see to believe, and it has to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen. The little penguins swim out to sea every morning at sunrise and spend the day eating as much fish as they can. And then at sunset, they gather together, run across the beach (when they are most vulnerable to preditors) and then head back to their burrows (and babies) to sleep for the night until starting the whole process over again the next day. It was a beutiful night that night, and we were entranced when we saw the first wave of penguins starting to come out of the sea. They looked around and then ran back in (couldn't blame them), but eventually they came out (in droves of 20 to 50 penguins at a time), and it was so cute to see them run across the beach, and then waddle past us to their nests. They are unbelievably cute. Although we missed out on the Fanatics fun that night, it was worth it.
Now onto the tennis. I know you have read various accounts, so I'll comment generally. There was some very high quality tennis, and I'm very glad I went. I was very disappointed for Pat and the team, but all the credit to the French. Escude played some amazing tennis. We knew -- as did everyone else -- that it was very unlikely that Wayne would win the final rubber. I think (although they have said otherwise) the team considered it a foregone conclusion, but we did our best to support him, and it's unfortunate that he was put into that situation. Nothing short of Escude spraining his ankle -- or a true miracle -- would have resulted in a win for Wayne, but he gave it his all, and it was lovely to watch. The best match, other than Pat's singles, of course, was the Hewitt/Grosjean match. Those guys really grinded that one out -- playing some long points. It was almost as though it was on clay instead of grass. It's too bad Lleyton couldn't have done that in the first rubber. He played flat then, and in the doubles as well. IMHO, that's when the tie was lost. If Lleyton had been on the top of his game, he could have beaten Escude, and the weekend would have been won. But it just wasn't meant to be -- unfortunately.
I read in the paper afterward that Pat's arm is really bad. Jocelyn also told Wendy and Robyn that it is bad, and it's doubtful he could come back even if he wanted to, at least in the near future. Apparently it is so bad that if he continued to overuse it, he could end up with stress fractures. It seems that even if he wanted to continue playing, he would have to rest it for six to eight months anyway -- so a Wimbly comeback this year seems unlikely. He literally was patched together for this final, and after it was over, the decision to play Pat in the doubles made more sense than it did when it was first announced. Perhaps they should have gone with Todd/Lleyton or Todd/Wayne, but Fabrice and Cedric played extremely well. I'm not sure the result would have been any different; it's hard to say. Quite truthfully, Pat played a lot better than Lleyton. A Pat/Todd match-up may have been a better one, but I think they play the same side of the court, and couldn't switch. Lleyton and Wayne play the other side -->so they were the only possibilities to match Pat up with, and it kind of made sense to go with Lleyton, realizing that if they lost the doubles, the final was pretty much lost anyway. Lleyton has had Sebastian's number lately, but a Wayne fifth rubber was not something anyone was looking forward to -- least of all Wayne.
The player's party was nice, but IMO more subdued than in Barcelona. We had a nice dinner there, and were able to re-watch the Hewitt/Grosjean match on the big TV screens. Unfortunately, the team came in just as Wayne's match was being played on the screen -- poor timing, and Woz had it shut off. Wayne didn't
appreciate being reminded of that experience! The crowd was wonderful to Wayne, yelling "We Want Wayne!," realizing he was a hero for being put in
that position. Pat spoke a bit, thanked the Fanatics, acknowledged he was taking his break and said he didn't know if he would be back. Then a
singer -- I believe Kevin Bloody Wilson -- came up and the boys sang some raunchy songs with him. Pat and Lleyton really got into it, and it was very funny to hear them singing those types of songs.
I wouldn't say they partied hard, but they did their best to have a good time. It wasn't as wild as Barca because I think their disappointment was greater. It had it's nice moments, though. One of
things I enjoyed was the rendition of "Throw Your Arms Around Me." Where everyone hugs and sways to the song. We did that at the tennis as well,
and it is very moving (so moving that Joanie bought the CD, but I inherited Joanie's copy when Deb purchased a copy for Joanie and had it left in our
room as a going-away present. Many thanks to Deb!) One thing that was obvious to me is that Lleyton and Kim have gotten even closer over the past year. They are such a sweet couple. Toward the end of the evening Kerrin and I found ourselves fairly close to Pat. He backed into me (kind of), and I did get to touch him as I kind of pushed myself back to get out of his way. He then turned to us, and when he looked at me, I touched his arm (which was right there) and said something inane such as "I wish you all the best, Pat." He said
thanks, and then he spoke with Kerrin a bit.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't think the party was as sad as it could have been. Almost everyone was philosophical about it. They also were very flattering to the French, realizing that they earned the Cup. The French were very gracious to the Aussies, and the Aussies were very gracious back. In fact, at times I thought the Aussie audience was too kind to the French. Although the crowd was partisan, they were good sports. There was no booing. They applauded points won by the French, and they didn't hiss or make noise between
serves. The French had it very easy compared to the Aussies in Barca, or even the Aussies in France. In fact, the Aussies are such good sports
that they handed out green-and-yellow clackers to the Aussies and red-white-and-blue clackers to the French fans. I wished I had scooped up more of the French ones as they could come in handy for U.S. Davis Cup. *lol*
There were also some funny moments during the tennis, as Joanie pointed out on the last night. Whenever a French player started to serve
and dropped the ball, the whole crowd would yell "Sorry Mate." We even had signs that were given to us that said "Go Aussies" on one side and "Sorry Mate" on the other for when Pat plays, and "C'Mon" for when Lleyton plays. Also, when a cell phone went off in the crowd, a guy yelled out,
"Turn off your phone, Newk." There definitely were some good-humored laughs during the weekend.
Robyn had invited us up to her house on the Monday, and I'm so glad she did. It was a bit frantic for her, because Wendy was leaving the day, Joelle and Leo were arriving, and she was busy shuttling us to and from the rail station, but she was such a great sport. Her home is absolutely beautiful. Her house is located in this lovely garden, and it's wonderful to sit in her home or on the porch and look at the beautiful birds coming and going. We saw kookaburas (? sp.), red wing parrots and cockatoos. It was amazing. And Robyn drove Joanie and I to Sassafrass to do some shopping. What a wonderful little town! It is so beautiful in that area; I'm glad we got a chance to visit it.
Robyn provided a lovely lunch, and we sat around visiting, looking at pics and enjoying each other's company. Many thanks, Robyn. And it was lovely that Peta was able to come up to join us. I'll always remember that day.
Now it is a bit unfortunate, but I was not my usual picture-taking fool during this trip. I was a bit subdued anyway, but things really grinded to a halt when I sat on my digital camera during the tennis and broke it. (We have sent it back to the manufacturer to see if it can be fixed.) After that, I bought one of those disposable cameras, so hopefully between the pics I took before the camera broke and the ones on the disposable, I'll have a few pics to show you all. But lots of people took tons of pics, so I'm sure there will be some good ones posted.)
I left Melbourne on Tuesday morning. I had to fly to Sydney, and had a six-hour layover before leaving for Los Angeles. It was very sad to leave Joanie and others behind, although I did get in some serious Christmas shopping at the Sydney airport -- as evidenced by the duty I paid when I came back into the U.S. *lol* I was so happy to get another view of Sydney by air coming and going, as it is an amazingly beautiful city.
The flights were long, and it was a bit choppy coming back, but I think it's like having a baby -- you forget the bad part and remember only the wonder. I want to go back to Aus, and I think next time I'll go with my family. But for Pat and tennis, I never would have even thought of going to Aus. Now I have discovered a country that is wonderful and so comfortable to visit. The people there were so gracious to us, and I think they probably are like that with everyone, but I think they genuinely like Americans. Joanie and I spoke with so many people who had been to the U.S. and loved it, and they wanted us to feel the same way about their country. And we did. As I said before, it is amazing to fly so far away from home and yet feel so at home.
Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible. I enjoyed my time with all the Babblers there, and I'm a bit sad to think this may be my last official Aussie Babbler trip. I think I'm retiring from the Fanatics along with Pat, but we'll see. He's left lots of windows and doors open, so time will tell. In any event, I'm so grateful to Robyn, Peta and Kerrin, and of course Woz, for making this trip a reality. It was so difficult to decide to make the trip, and very difficult getting it organized, but once we got there, we knew it was meant to be.
Take care.
Love, Susan
Back to Davis Cup Melbourne index