The Australian Open tennis 2008

I live in Melbourne and have been going to the tennis much of my life. These days however, it is so crowded and difficult to get good tickets out of the sun that I just watch on the TV. It can get very hot in Melbourne, like 42C.

I have just seen an Australian girl called Casey win in a third round match against Amelie Mauresmo in 3 sets. I have never seen her play before and she has certainly never played on centre court, but she played really well and wasn't overawed by the occasion. This is the first time in many years that a female tennis player from Australia has got so far (although I'd have to check on Alicia Molik's results before she was out for a year with an ear infection).

There's been some politics and sports media. Melbourne is the second biggest Greek city in the world, but the Greeks never used to come to the tennis before Marcos Baghdatis came on the scene. The other day the Hellas Fan Club was barracking for another Greek player and the police moved in with capsicum spray and removed 3 members of that club from the ground. The game was stopped and the coverage went round the world.

Then today, someone had released a video of Baghdatis from a bbq he was at last year where he is seen with this Hellas fan club yelling out "Turks out of Cyprus". I happen to agree with the sentiment here because Turkey has occupied Cyprus. However the Turks were calling for his removal from the tournament for racism. I don't agree that it is racism. I mean if an Iraqi calls for the removal of the USA from Irag, that's not racism, that's freedom fighting.