We got given tickets for the Brisbane International Tennis for Christmas this year, this is after getting tennis tickets for the hugs n kisses parents last year as a present, so they duly returned the favour by sending us to the tennis this year because they had such a great time.
I say the best seats on main court at the open as once your there, every seat in the arena is the best in the house, because you can see and hear everything no matter where you are seated.
This tennis tournament can come under many different names if you are going to start looking for information before you go, it can be called the Brisbane International, Brisbane Open Tennis, Queensland Tennis Centre and the Pat Rafter Arena to name a few, you can search for any of these and you should make it through to the main Brisbane International Tennis website that will give you a lot of information about the tennis tournament etc ( brisbaneinternational.com.au ).
If you are getting your tickets early it’s hard to know who is playing on the night and this year was no different with Roger Federer playing men’s singles tennis as well as the men’s doubles, as I heard on the radio it was an organiser’s nightmare trying to shuffle it all around to fit and also keep the crowds happy each session.
So the days are broken up into sections and you can buy tickets for each session for each day in different areas depending on who you want to watch.
We were on seated on the main court of Pat Rafter Arena for the 7pm session.
We found out the morning of the day we would be watching Victoria Azarenka play Stefani Voegele first and then after that the match between Sam Groth and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Herbert was a lucky loser due to Kevin Anderson having to pull out due to a stomach virus.
Next was the planning of how we were going to get there and also how, taking the car was the easy part but you also have to think about the no parking zone around the centre now too, so we settled on driving in and parking in the Corinda Station area and then catching the free shuttle bus to the tennis centre from there.
This was the easiest way as we had to take our little squid with us as well.
We found out the best information for travel to and car parking at the tennis on their website, again, very helpful and it gives you a few choices of how you can get there with ease.
If you end up doing the same as us to get there and you intend on eating, you may want to check out little Chinese restaurant below a gym two roads across from the train station where we had our pre tennis dinner, very good, it’s a pity it isn’t closer or it would become our local Chinese takeaway for sure, fresh food, great taste and all at a good price too.
In the whole Corinda Train Station area, where you can catch the bus to the tennis, there is quite a few options for eating, Italian, Subway and more, of course there is food at the tennis too, a little bit dearer than eating before you get there though.
After eating it was off on the bus for the tennis, we only had to wait for a few minutes sitting on the bus before we were off, so that was great.
The bus didn’t have that many people on it as it was a little late, I was monitoring the Hewitt match too on the way in as we were a little behind in time, but he didn’t finish for a while so we were all good for arriving for the night session.
We got off the bus and started walking in, the previous session was coming out and we had to hug the fence line coming out to have a chance of getting into the venue as the volume of people was massive, after a little while we broke through and it was happy sailing into the centre.
We scanned our tickets, made the compulsory toilet break and then went into our seats on the main court.
What an amazing venue for tennis, like I said above, there isn’t a bad seat in the house at the Pat Rafter Arena and it looks a lot smaller than what it does on TV too.
There are two huge screens hanging from the roof they use to tell you the match score, ads and also the challenges that happen from the players when they think they have had a dodgy call against them.
The roof over the main court stops the weather coming in, as you can see in the photo there is a gap from the top of the last row of seats up to the roof, this allows the wind, air, birds and bugs to come into the main court area so it is like playing outside without playing outside if that makes sense.
At certain times while we were inside there was a little bit of rain outside and the wind changed, this meant the rain was getting blown through the gap between the last row of seats and the roof, not much but still enough to let you know it was raining outside.
Azarenka and Voegele came out onto the court, warmed up and were into the match in no time.
Another point I must mention here too to watch out for, which was a first for us and I hadn’t read anything about it, if you head out to go to the toilet, buy a coffee, food or similar and you mistimed your run back or out you have to stay out until the next change of ends.
I got us a couple of coffees at the start of Groth and Herbert’s match and had to wait outside for a few more games, this coupled with lining up for coffee with not many staff on late at night means you may miss a whole set altogether or match point if you have to do a toilet run and it’s a 6-0 drubbing, so keep this in mind if you go away from your seat.
Azarenka took care of Voegele moderately quickly and Groth (Who is an Australian tennis player) finally over powered Herbert in the end too, the last match went for a very long time and I think we got into the car well after midnight for the trip home.
It was pretty easy to get out of the venue too, it was pretty late and many people had already left the main court prior to the finish of the match, so it was a leisurely stroll down to the bus pick up zone, wait for the bus to be filled an then off back to Corinda train station to pick up the car.
A great night was had at the Brisbane International and I would have no hesitation in recommending buying tickets for the tennis or even, as we have done, buying tickets to the tennis as presents for people.
I think this tennis tournament will only grow in popularity over the coming years and with big men’s tennis names like Federer coming to it too on top of the top female players that are already coming to the WTA event, the rest will follow in time.
It was a great spectacle the final and congratulations for Hewitt taking it out, I have said it on my social media accounts, great venue, great players, well organised and lastly great TV coverage too, what more could you want for in a tennis tournament in Brisbane.
Hopefully we may get a few more tickets for a present next year.
