Australian Open: Grand Slam Tennis!
The top tennis players in the world are in Melbourne Australia right now preparing for the first “Grand Slam” tournament of the year. There are only four of these “mega tournaments” per year, and though in some aspects it’s “just another tournament” in others, it’s not, and the stakes are high. To wit, the ranking points are doubled, and the money is big; so there’s a lot on the line for these players. And while guys like Rafa, Federer, Roddick, Murray, etc are playing for championships, other guys, especially the “qualifiers” are playing for travel expenses and, quite literally, their livelihood.
The brackets have been posted; play begins Monday 18 January, 2010.
Note: Play begins Monday 18 January Australia time! There’s a significant time difference between Melbourne and the U.S.
EST (+16hrs ahead of US): Take the current time, subtract 8hrs, add 1-day. If it’s 8pm on a Tues night in Manhattan, it’s noon on Wed in Melborune
CST (+17hrs ahead of US): Take the current time, subtract 7hrs, add 1-day. If it’s 7pm on a Tues night in Chicago, it’s noon on Wed in Melbourne
Current Time in Melbourne:
Tournament Links
Bracket Challenge
This is like the NCAA “March Madness” bracket, only 1 order of magnitude cooler:
26 = 64 Teams in NCAA
27 = 128 players in each bracket (Men’s & Women’s)
Also, don’t forget to register for the main bracket where you could win prizes. The only thing you win in the pool that I created is bragging rights which, don’t get me wrong, matter.
Perhaps your a busy person, always on the go? You’d really like to keep tabs on this tournament, but what with all the stuff you’ve got going on, you don’t see how it’s possible. There’s an app for that:
Australian Open’ from your iPhone
The Australian Open is making a huge technological leap for 2010 – offering a specialised iPhone application for the first time.
The new official Open iPhone app is now available from the iTunes App Store by simply searching for ‘Australian Open’ from your iPhone, and best of all, it is free!
Produced in partnership with IBM, the Australian Open app will provide you with real-time live scoring direct to your iPhone, as well as live radio streaming from the tennis and many more features.
You can also follow the game’s biggest Tweeters including Andy Roddick, Andy Murray, Serena Williams and Casey Dellacqua. Murray and Roddick are both Tweeting from Melbourne already.
In Monday’s hot temperatures, Andy Murray Tweeted, “7.30 in the evening here and it is 39 degrees. Hitting in 43 degrees is interesting…”
The application also offers all the vital information you could need about the tournament – including scores, schedules, news, draws, photos and player profiles.
Note: January is smack-dab in the middle of the Aussie summer, so when Andy Murray said “Hitting in 43 degrees is interesting…”, he means that it’s 43 degrees Celsius; not quite 110°F! That’s not all; Australian Open on-court temperatures have been measured consistently in the high 40s to low 50s!
| Temp Conversions | |
| °C | °F |
| 35 | 95 |
| 40 | 104 |
| 45 | 113 |
| 50 | 122 |
| 55 | 131 |
| 60 | 140 |
Hotter than 2 squirrels gettin busy in a wool sock, if ya know what I mean.
| Serve Speeds | |
| Kph | Mph |
| 150 | 93.2 |
| 160 | 99.4 |
| 170 | 105.6 |
| 180 | 111.8 |
| 190 | 118.1 |
| 200 | 124.3 |
| 210 | 130.5 |
| 220 | 136.7 |
| 230 | 142.9 |
| 240 | 149.1 |
| 250 | 155.3 |
Note: At 155mph, Andy Roddick (USA) has the world record for the fastest serve ever recorded. It was an ace.
Stay tuned for updates. Because I. Can’t. Help myself.
Nice. My (super) boyfriend, Jackson is a tennis man. It is practically the only sport I am interested in. He is giving me lessons
Tennis = More awesome than the giant sandworms of Arrakis! (I retract my previous statement about those worms)
Regarding your tennis: (1) Right on! (2) Stick with it! (3) Watch. The. Ball!
FYI, Mr Froth is a tennis player as well. In fact, we’re on the same, USTA, men’s doubles team! We are not undefeated.
1. ‘Hotter than 2 squirrels gettin busy in a wool sock’ is freakin’ brilliant, even though I initially read it as ’2 squids gettin’ busy in a wood stock’ (sometimes I am a humourous idiot).
2. When I lived in the Canadas, one of my pro-jects was attempting this: If celsius to farenheit is basically double it and add 32 (for the laymen & chicks out there), when the celsius is negative does this theory still apply? My answer unto myself is ‘yup’. When experiencing temperatures of -10, double that negatively (you’ll note I’ve developed my own mathematical terms) and plug on a 32 to equal 12 degrees farenheit. Any actual chance of this being accurate or should I remain merely an ornament sans the smarts?
3. Grab your nearest Melanie and enjoy watching the tennis!
The way I think about Celsius to Fahrenheit is this: I know that 10 Celsius degrees = 18 Fahrenheit degrees.
That is, 10C = 18F, *plus* the 32 = 50F
If the temp goes up 10 degrees Celsius, and now it’s 20C, that means the F temp went up 18 degrees, and sure enough, 20C = 68F
30C…that’s 18+18+18 = 54F, *plus* the 32 = 86F
For colder weather, ff it’s -20C…that’s -36F, plus the 32 = -4F
Anyway, I just think about C to F in groups of 10, where each 10 Celsius degrees = 18 Fahrenheit degrees. and then add in that annoying 32.
Fucking English system is so damned…weird. The metric system is SOOOOO much easier to understand…everything relates to everything else in nice, easy-to-calculate groups of 10.
Take volume: USA has ounces (also used for mass), quarts, pints, gallons, etc. Multiple terms used to describe a single concept of “how much milk is left?”
Metric has one: Liters. And if we’re talking mass, now we’re talking Grams. Simple. Efficient. Easy to understand.
And if we’re talking pints…we’re talking Guinness, and everything is as it should be!