Day 1 Australian Open with the eye.

The atmosphere was electric as we entered Melbourne Park for Day 1 of the Australian Open a quick orientation walk and a look at the many stalls from sponsors and equipment suppliers , I made my way to Rod Laver where Maria Sharapova opened proceedings for 2011 against the veteran Thai player Tamarine Too much to write.

It really was a forgone conclusion this match however Sharapova will have to lift her game , too many double faults and I think an average performance against a player that needs to retire!I did not watch the full match and realized all the action and more competitive matches were on out side courts. I head over to watch Sam Queerey and Lucasz Kubot.Kubot getting the upset win and sending Queerey packing in 5.

The beauty about the outside courts some great seats are available and today I found my self court-side on many of the matches.Leaving the Queerey match I wanted to see a little of the Fabio Fognini and Kei Nishikori match with Brad Gilbert now in the young Japanese players corner.It was a grinding baseline battle with Nishikori winning in 4 sets. I'm not sure what was wrong with the Italian and there were calls from the crowd to fire up ...alas he went out with a whimper rather than a bang.

Bernie a young coach from Argentina travelling with us wanted to see one of his countryman play so it was off to watch Juan Monaco against the German  Simon Greul.This proved an entertaining match with many long and exhausting rally s.Monaco gets up in three.Me thinks the top players like Fed And Nadal can recover quicker than say players with a ranking such as the Argentine after the hard "gut" wrenching rally's maybe this is the difference.Their focus is tuned in earlier than these guys who are showing fatigue after some of the tough points.

I quickly headed back to Rod Laver arena where I had a date with the great one Roger Federer.His opponent poor Lucas Lacko faced the full array of shots from the mighty Fed. Federer looked like he was toying with Lacko using the drop shot to perfection as only MR Perfection can.A very easy match the Fed Express winning in three sets.

Today i had my pedometer attached and I found I had done 12km today walking from match to match.I have written about Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov here on my blog before as a player to watch out for.So I headed to his court to take in the action!He is nineteen and has some Federer like strokes about him.He came through qualies and had an impressive win in straight sets today against Andrev Golubev .Dimitrov has a great serve and is a young player to watch out for.An Interesting fact he is coached by former Aussie top ten player Paul McNamara.

So I am just about to hit the post button to bring to the end a very exhausting day and no doubt a lot of spelling mistakes tomorrow I am on Out side courts all day and will be checking out these players, Robin Soderling,Jo Wilfred Tsonga, Marin Cilic,Juan Martin Del Potro,John Isner and many more in what should be an equally enjoyable Day 2. Rafa plays tomorrow on Rod Laver...Well check back on my day tomorrow!