We’ve had tickets to the semifinals of the Australian Open for months. Though not a big tennis fan, I love the Williams sisters. They’re fun to watch, they live near me in Florida (we had a ” Serena sighting” at the movies about a year ago), and they’re about the only thing going at the moment in American tennis. We thought it was a pretty safe bet that at least one would make it through to the semis – Serena won the whole thing last year. Worst case scenario was what we termed “ova and ova”; four of the seemingly interchangeable eastern European women who dominate women’s tennis these days. Absent Maria Sharapova, who stays busy selling millions of digital cameras and sports drinks to salivating American men, we didn’t follow tennis closely enough to get excited about a Slovene playing a Serb. The narrow American world view strikes again.
Well, as you may know, Serena and Venus got knocked out in the quarterfinals by two women from Serbia, so we had a day of former eastern bloc women’s tennis. We knew Sharapova, but the others (though highly ranked) were barely familiar to us casual tennis aficionados. The crowd favorite was a young woman named Ana Ivanovic. Though Serbian, she has some attenuated familial connection to Melbourne and has been writing a daily column in the local newspaper over the last two weeks about her experiences under the bright lights of Grand Slam tennis, so she was the adopted Aussie (she felt a little forced, though…after winning a crucial point, she yelled “c’mon!” and pumped her fist. Assuming Serbo-Croatian is her first language, “c’mon” popped into her head at a heated, emotional moment in the match? Or perhaps a bit of crowd manipulation?).
The tennis, frankly, was dull. The first match was no contest, and the first half of the Ivanovic match wasn’t competitive, either. Actually, despite the love of the crowd, our Ana was getting hammered by Daniela Hantuchova (our second “ova” of the day). The crowd was restless. A few people, seizing the moment, started yelling out “Go Ana!” It wasn’t long before many in the crowd realized that this was also the phonetic equivalent of Goanna, a common large lizard found in many parts of Australia (see photo). People starting chuckling and yelling “Goanna” through the crowd. It wasn’t long before someone yelled “banana.” Ana came back and won after losing the first set 6-0, by the way. No doubt her kinship with the lizard and the crowd helped her game. We met two women yesterday who claimed to have started the Goanna cheer and are planning to bring signs with enlarged photos of the lizard to the finals match today. Aussie humor. If we were at Wimbledon, we probably would have had to quietly suffer through two mediocre matches in relatively silence.
The men’s match that night was another story. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a relatively unknown French player, took apart world number two Rafael Nadal in straight sets. It looked like a star was born – his game was amazing. Even I was yelling “allez Tsonga!!” by the end.
All of this is happening in Melbourne, a great city by any standard. It often gets compared to Sydney, because they’re about the same size and have a bit of a rivalry going on. If there was an American equivalent, it would be Sydney’s L.A. to Melbourne’s San Francisco. I think Sydney is a better place to be a tourist – more touristy things to do, more familiar sights and Australian icons – but Melbourne is a much cooler place to hang out if you want a few days in the city.
Melbourne prides itself on being a little more refined culturally and gastronomically than Sydney – there is great art and theatre here, and fantastic restaurants – but it’s also edgier and more urban. It’s a really beautiful city, starting with the Yarra River, great parks and green spaces, and some of the most amazing architecture – inventive modern buildings seem to blend in gracefully with majestic old Victorian churches and museums. Melbourne’s real character, though, is in its neighborhoods – from the artist’s community in Fitzroy, to the market and hipster scene in Prahran, or St. Kilda, with a great beach and legendary nightlife for the young and pierced, to Toorak, with very posh cafes and toney shopping. If you want to snap photos of the Opera House as soon as you get off the plane, go to Sydney first. But don’t pass up Melbourne – it’s a fun, cosmopolitan take on Australia.
Beating the dead horse of our favorite Australian cultural icon once again, we saw “Priscilla – The Musical” on stage last night. It was loads of fun, and for inquiring minds who know the movie, they pulled off the ping pong ball scene brilliantly (Me Like!!). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’d better go rent the movie…
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