The real start of the Sporting Odyssey was today, and it was an odyssey in its self. Fourteen hours at Roland Garros, including 2hrs waiting to get in (last minute ticket finally came through), 4hrs of rain delay and a classic five-setter finishing at midnight – all on a day when the temperature didn’t get over 13 degrees.

Setting off in the morning without a ticket, Mamfa’s plan was to just turn up and see if we could get in somehow. A pretty poor plan in hindsight so adventuring into the world of dodgy last-minute ticket resale websites, he bought a ground pass then had the nervous wait for an hour until it arrived on his phone.

As luck would have it, Alex de Minaur was playing on an outside court (would never happen at Aus Open) so it was great to see his match. However, after the second set, the heavens opened for the next 4 hrs. At least this gave us time to watch the Cats beat the Tigers in the AFL on the phone.

De Minaur returned to win in 4 sets. Mamfa turned into one of those fans that yells out support all the time – there weren’t any other Aussie voices in the crowd. One young kid however was yelling support all game and Alex gave him a hug after the win and has put out a message on X trying to find him to get him to his next match.

The rain delay ended up being fortuitous as Thanassi Kokkinakis’ match against Taylor Fritsch was transferred from a show court to an outside court so we got to see that as well. After being 2-0 sets down, Thanassi came back to take it to a fifth set. The crowd was right behind him with chants and cheers making a great atmosphere. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t get over the line. Being up close to watch Aussies play is hard in Australia so it was fantastic to do it at another Grand Slam. We left the venue frozen (me a bit shaken up from Mamfa’s shivering) but very happy.

On this day in history (1 June)

1954 Czech distance runner Emile Zatopek breaks his own 10,000m world record, clocking 28:54.2 in Brussels, Belgium