Melbourne Peach ice cream is the real winner

Every employee at Ollies Takes were invited by Tennis Australia to attend the first three days of the Australian Open. Over these few days, I have developed a few hot takes on the Open from the ice cream and the shade to start times and the new courtside bar. Enjoy.

Take 1: Sunday start a bit of a misread

Why is the tournament starting on Sunday? The 2024 Aussie Open started on Sunday for the first time, adding a day to the tournament with the aim of reducing the number of late finishes. Sounds good in theory. In practise, useless.

All of the first four days of the Open have had matches go past midnight , so this earlier tournament start has not done much to reduce the number of late matches.

Why doesn’t the Sunday start work? The majority of late matches this year (and the last few years) have been on the two biggest courts, Rod Laver and Margaret Court Arena. The late finishes are due to the broadcasting rights forcing the night session to start at a relatively late 7pm. Bringing the tournament forward a day actually does nothing to reduce these late finishes unless the night session start time is re-negotiated.

So the late night finishes are not fixed but why is starting a day earlier a problem? The crowds on Sunday rivalled the middle weekend with 90,000 fans coming through the gates on day 1. The result: hour long queues for matches between players normally battling on the futures or challenger tour.

With the high level of fans on day 1, you would have thought the tournament schedulers would make sure there are as many matches on court as possible, right? Wrong. Day 1 saw only 32 matches played throughout the day which was  half of what was played during day 2! So, more fans and less matches, I am struggling to see the logic here.

This lack of sense resulted in disgruntled fans, some of which I conducted informal interviews with. They described the Sunday queues as a “joke” and “not much fun”. One fellow punter went on to say the “Aussie Open is finished. It’s all about getting as much money as possible at the cost of the fan experience”.

Whilst I wouldn’t go that far as the Australian Open upgrades the fan experience year on year, the Sunday start with fewer matches, is certainly a misread.

Take 2: Melbourne Peach ice-cream is the real winner

The Melbourne Peach ice-cream has returned this year and gee they are as good as ever. The "Melbourne Peach" is a peach flavoured ice cream topped with raspberry “bits” available once a year, at Melbourne park whilst the tennis is on.

The Peach is attempting to be the Australian version of Wimbledon’s “Strawberries and Cream” and whilst I think the flavoured ice cream has a fair way to go until it reaches that status, I am not complaining as the ice cream slaps.

Take 3: Courtside bar is just not quite it

The Aus Open introduced a courtside bar on court 6 this year aimed at improving fan experience and ultimately provide a unique way to watch tennis.

As you can see in the above picture, fans are able to sit at the bar and also watch the tennis which sounds like a match made in heaven. However, due to overcrowding, lack of fan management and no substantial tiering of the viewing area, it resulted in chaos and an inability to actually see the full court unless you were one of about 20 in the front row.

One player who will not be raving about the courtside bar is Alexander Bublik who was complaining about the noise coming from the bar resulting in a loss of focus, ordinary tennis and the demise of one of his rackets.

A bar anywhere in the world is never going to be quiet and in a sport which is typically played in silent conditions, the players are not used to the environment.

I think the bar is a good idea but next year there need to be clear communications with the players so they know what they are getting themselves into but also for the fans there needs to be more structure to the viewing arrangements with security making sure clowns arent standing directly in front of seats, less music being played for the sake of the players and of course... more shade which brings me to my next take.

Take 4: Any danger of some shade

When it is hot in Melbourne, it gets real hot due to the lack of wind, leaving many spectators hunting shade at Melbourne Park. Unfortunately for the spectators, there's actually not much!

Whilst there has been an effort to improve the amount of shade at some courts such as showcourt 3, there are some courts such at 1573 shown above and regions such as that between court 12, 13 and 14 which are simply unbearable on the hot days.

The Open has gotta do better (said by a man who got very sweaty and a bit sunburnt).

Take 5: IGA Swiatek

Aussie supermarket chain, IGA are missing an opportunity to sponsor their name sake, Polish world number one, Iga Swiatek for the Aussie swing. Whilst I don’t have a degree in marketing, this is marketing genius and needs to be done. IGA, make it happen in 2025.

See you shortly for another instalment of Ollies Takes

OT