Plz send in your movie/cds/concerts/gigs/festivals/plays reviews to: cinhn4eva@hotmail.com

Farrah's Review on the 2002 Australian Open:

Thomas Enqvist - Farrah's heroe!

Every year around mid-January I always seem to get a great tan (burnt?) and pick up on my Swedish and no doubt 2002 was no exception! Monday the 14th of January saw me, as always, eagerly wake up bright and early for Day One of the first Grand Slam event of the year, the Australian Open. Having already tasted a little of the tennis atmosphere last week at the Commbank International tournament at Kooyong, I was still excited and compulsively
obsessed to witness the top seeds and biggest names in tennis today, take to Rod Laver Arena, Vodaphone stadium and ... Court 18!?!?!?
Yes, that's right. As soon as the gates open on that Monday morning I ran to court 18 but on the way there, I noticed that court 16 had drawn a HUGE crowd of boys (ironically aged between 12 - 18)... I pondered what
phenomenon had caught the attention of such adolescent, testosterone-filled males... I peered through all the people and pushed my way forward trying to catch a glimpse of the "celebrity" that lay of the opposite side of the sea of people, then an anti-climax. It was Anna Kournikova. Can you believe that I wasted approximately 42.6sec to see a model playing tennis (let's face it, she's beautiful but she really sucks at the sport!). Sheesh...
Anyway, yes court 18. I lined myself with the best seat in the house...right behind the players chairs... then I waited... and waited... and waited. Then after a women's first round match and 3 rain delays, court 18 was graced with the presence of my most favouritest tennis player... that's right... THOMAS ENQVIST. He's hot man... don't deny it and he can play too. The Stockholm-born hottie only took 2hours and 6mins to dipose of the lesser known (and less attractive! hehe...) Frenchman otherwise known as N.Thomann. After that match, I was satisfied with the tennis that I saw that day already witnessing two Swedish victories (the other being Thomas Johansson) and an unfortunate loss of a true Australian comical player in Andrew Illie.

Wednesday the 16th of January bought me more great tennis but emotional sadness. I had a better day at the tennis today because for one, the weather was superb, not too hot and not too cold, and I had company! Thanks for coming with me Shannon! Anyway, the fourth match on court 1 was the one that I was waiting for. The Swedish onslaught, the blonde hair and blue-eyed battle. It was THOMAS ENQVIST versus Jonas Bjorkmann. I was excited and amazingly, throughout the whole match, the Swedish fans were quiet!! They had a tough decision on their hands. Thomas or Jonas!?

It was brilliant tennis... lobs, smashes, aces, shirt changes... oops! However, my fifteen minutes of fame came when Thomas served and Jonas mis-hit the ball... it went high into the sky, heading towards the stands...all hands went up to catch the ball... then bounce, bounce, bounce... I caught it!!! I looked at Shannon and noticed that everyone was looking at me!! WOO HOO!! I put my hands up like I had just won the Australian Open and threw the ball back to the ballboy... I received an applause and then play resumed. It wasn't anything spectacular but it was cool!! hehe!! Anyway, I gained an even tan and lots of memories from this year's visit to the tennis... hopefully many more! Next year, I'll try and get a job as a scoreboard operator... I work with computers and they use IBM!! It will look good on my resume!! haha!!

OK, til the next Grand Slam event (which is the French Open at Roland Garros), this is Farrah signing off and out!

Peace out!