Tennis thread: looking forward to the new season

[PrivateSpidey]

While we dream up our Australian Open advent calendar, the chat continues!

Oh right it's Todd Woodbridge commentating - I couldn't work out who it was. Talks quite a lot of sense. No butterfly chat.

They've kindly just clarified that RBA won the first match so Spain are 1-0 up.

Thanks Raahh

I doubt Rafa will be up for playing the doubles!

He looks a bit out of it. It's mad, coming from Perth, on the other side of Australia and different time zone, climate etc, to playing this within one/two days!! It's ridiculous.

It is nuts.

He doesn't look like he is going to pull off a great escape like he did against Medvedev in London, sadly.

No, and Goffin is looking pretty pumped, as they say.

Newsflash: my phone finally recognised the name Goffin, just now! He has been "Coffin" or "Boffin" for so long! It must mean something...

Todd straying into AC territory now with his restaurant chat.

Oi Todd. Stop it.

Oh this is nice, restaurant guides from Todd.

x post

Raahh I've just noticed that it says the tie score at the bottom of the screen

I'm so unobservant.

Hmm this could be interesting...

Break back Rafa - the crowd there are definitely team Spain.

I hadn't noticed the tie score either!

I'm glad he is up in this set- but he still looks so hot and bothered, I'm not sure he will last. But you can never count Rafa out.

In a way , it's a bit off that all the questions to Kyrgios and the Aussie team were about playing Spain- Belgium had been pretty much written off before they had hit a ball, and Goffin has played really well this week!

Yep - they just can't help themselves!

Rafa eyebrow action - love it

Oh and a close-up shot of his drink bottles

Now if Mac was commentating we would get a 10 minute diatribe about the drinks bottles.

Hmm this is going to be interesting

pfft.

I hate tie breaks.

Ah bloody hell David! Did all the hard work and then missed the last shot!

Rubbish.

Well, it will be interesting to see if Rafa does play the doubles.

I thought it was going to be close, the tiebreak. But Goffin was a bit ruthless. Great win for him.

I wonder if Rafa will play doubles as well - Spain has some brilliant doubles players on the bench if he doesn't. He might want a rest?

They've just said Rafa will play doubles but surely not...he looked exhausted and they have plenty of players to choose from on the bench.

The semi final is tomorrow, isn't it? And Australia will have had an extra day to rest.
Considering the length of the whole shebang, it seems very poorly thought out.