I say - anyone for tennis?

It's the week of the BrisbaneInternational Tennis Tournament this week, and as the tennis centre is only a couple of km away we thought we'd nip down and check it out today.

There are two ticketing options. One gives you access to a nominated seat in the Pat Rafter Arena, where the famous people play ($50). The other is a 'ground ticket', which gives you access to all of the other courts so you can watch games by lower seeded players and also if you're lucky catch the stars warming up ($15). Not being massive tennis fans, we decided to take ground tickets.

The main problem was the sun - most of the viewing areas were outdoors, so when the sun came out it quickly became painful.

 The courts had shade cloths at their corners, so people ended up forming a chevron out of the sun, all peering over each others shoulders to figure out who was playing (as in the bottom right below)

 Although the urge to wear silly hats was still overwhelming to some

We still got to see a few famous players, notably British player Andy Murray (in true UK tabloid style, he is British until he loses a match and then he strangely becomes Scottish)

 We also saw a game between Zapp and Andreev, although we're still not quite sure who was who

  

 and in the ladies tournament, King vs Czing

I've never been to a tennis tournament before so it was interesting to see the routines and social niceties that take place (SIT DOWN IN FRONT!). For instance the main arena only allowed people in and out during breaks in play, so there was always a queue of people standing outside the doors with drinks watching the game on the TVabove the door.

 It was an interesting day, although we both got pretty battered by the sun and were happy to leave in the mid-afternoon. But there were still people outside the gates wishing they were inside