Since I’ve been a big fan of tennis for years, I was really excited when I realized that Melbourne hosts one of the four Grand Slam events in tennis: the Australian Open. This year’s tournament is being held from Monday, January 18, through Sunday, January 31, and I was thrilled to go for the first two days. I bought tickets for the grounds and the HiSense Arena, so I was able to see some great tennis matches while I was there.
The first match I saw was the number two seed Dinara Safina (pictured above and in the top photo on the right) from Russia take on the unseeded Magdalena Rybarikova (shown in the top photo on the left side) from Slovakia. (I thought it was kind of cool that I had visited the cities both players were originally from too!) The game wasn’t particularly amazing—Safina defeated Rybarikova pretty quickly (6-4, 6-4)—but I was just excited to see my first professional tennis match! Safina went on to win against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova and Elena Baltacha, but she was knocked out of the tournament by Maria Kirilenko in the fourth round.
I took these photos in the HiSense Arena in Melbourne, Australia in January 2010.
© Kathy Keating and An Expat’s Photoblog, 2010.
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