We had breakfast again downstairs - a lot quieter in the hotel today as the weekend crowd has left it seems!
We didn't have to be at the courts too early as the matches don't start until 11. We were ready early so decided to leave the hotel at about 9.30 as we didn't have anything else to do. We had the front desk call us a cab. Seems that to have them call a cab adds another 4 euro to the cost.
The cab driver wasn't able to drop us off right at the gate as everything was blocked off. he went up a side road and found a place to drop us that turned out being better than the front anyways. Getting into the courts was quite time consuming as we had to go through a number of security checks. We had bags checked, we had a handheld metal detector waved over us, we walked through a metal detector and were patted down. Lats check was an ID check and then we were in.
The Roland Garros complex is massive! I think there are about 16 courts here, not that theyre all in use. We had tickets on Phillipe Chatrier which is the main court. First stop though was to get some drinks and second was the souvenir shop. Armed with our new hats we went and found our seats. Play started at 11 and we were seated just before that. the sun is out today and boy its hot. The stadium is awesome but no shade.
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| view from our seats |
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| waiting for the action to begin |
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| the draw board - not many games played yet |
The first match was two ladies - Muguruza vsSchiavone. Both were previous champions so it was a good match. It was over pretty quickly though and then we were on to the mens. This time it was Grannollers vs Djokovic. Raonic was playing on court 2 which was just next door and boy that crowd was loud. Its funny, we see these guys on the tv, but in person theyre so skinny. Novak looks like he needs a good feed - but he is so powerful. Hes awesome to watch as he moves like a cat.
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| Muguruza the gracious winner |
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| Djokovic - so skinny up close |
We got some more drinks and some wraps for lunch - they cost a small fortune which is not really surprising. We stayed until about 2 pm and as we were getting a bit burned decided to go home. We wandered out front and managed to find a cab nearby!!
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| random bus advertising |
I desperately wanted to have crepes while we were here so that was the dinner plan. It all went quite pear shaped as the one that was about 800 metres away turned out to be well over a km away, and when we found it eventually it was shut...grr So it was a pretty slapdash dinner - Tony had chippes and Nate and I had quiches.
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