6 Terms You Only Ever Hear At Australian Open Time

Bundled out? Wildcard?


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The Australian Open is a brilliant time of year.

The weather is grouse, and the constant churn of sport on TV makes you forget that work has started again.

But the event has a language all of its own, so we’ve put together a guide to the terms you only ever hear at this time of year.

 

Bundled out

Reserved only for Aussies or high seeds, a player can only be bundled out in the first three or so rounds. After that they either fought valiantly or were blown away.

 

Wet bulb temperature

The only other way you might have heard this one is if you’re one of the 30 or 40 who watch the A-League. The wet bulb temperature is a reading they use to pretend that they might care about player safety enough to call off play when it’s ridiculously hot.

 

Wildcard

A wildcard is a player who’s technically not good enough to get in the main draw but is either Aussie or will do something funny or outrageous enough to grab headlines.

 

Aussie [player who is not Australian]

No sport other than tennis has Australians claiming a player who absolutely is not Australian. Think Aussie Marcos Baghdatis, Aussie Kim Clijsters, or Aussie Daria Gavrilova (to be fair that one counts now).

 

Megawall

Channel 7’s wall of screens that they use to pretend they’re ever going to show anything other than the Aussie or the highest ranking seed that’s playing.

 

Henri Leconte

The bloke they fly out in the second week to act zany and remind everyone that tennis is actually totally fun. Watch him hilariously play doubles even though he’s totally old!

Rudi Edsall

19 January 2018

Article by:

Rudi Edsall




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