There were many things to be happy about in the Men’s final of the Australian Open.
First of all what a superb game of tennis, played by two true gentlemen and sportsman, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The match went five hours and 53 minutes and was almost an hour longer than the previous longest match in a grand slam final. That was the four hours and 54 minutes Mats Wilander took to beat Ivan Lendl at the 1988 US Open.
The second plus was that Channel Seven showed the game live in Perth. What a welcome change it was to be able to watch a major sporting event life as it was happening in Perth.
As mentioned both men were respectful of each other after the match, and the organizers, sponsors and all who made the vent the success it is each year.
Now maybe we are becoming slightly grumpy as we get older, but do the post game speeches have to be so long? It was abundantly clear that both players were spent forces, cramping up and struggling to stay on their feet. It took a while for chairs to be brought out for them so that they could sit through the speeches and the relief on both players’ faces when they did arrive was immediately evident.
We know that the sponsors want their money’s worth of air time at the end of the tournament, and to be fair the gentleman from Kia, the official sponsor spoke superbly, and eloquently, but is it necessary to have the head of Tennis Australia waffle on so long?
Fans and players alike really are not that interested in hearing from sports administrators at such events, they want to hear from the victor and the vanquished. Let us hope that the one thing to come out of this fantastic final is that the post match speeches need to be shorter.
