Oberlin, Ohio - The Oberlin College men's and women's tennis teams are heading 'down under' and we know you all wish you could have made the trip to Australia as well, but have no fear we will have you covered right here on goyeo.com. It will be as if you are there in the person (not really, but we will do our best to try).

You can follow the trip through daily blogs from the student-athletes themselves that will be posted right here on this page. We also strongly encourage you to like Oberlin Women's Tennis and Oberlin's Men's Tennis on Facebook for exclusive photos.

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Janurary 30 - Entry by Erin Johnson

Thursday was our last full day in Australia. After three days of nothing but rain in Sydney, we were happy to see sunshine as we made our way to the Sydney Olympic Park to play our second match of the trip. Upon arrival, we were lucky enough to get the grand tour of both the museum and center court in the stadium that can hold 10,000 spectators. After the grand tour, we hit the courts for a light hit and warm-up before our matches. Unfortunately, the team we were playing did not have any girls. We have determined that women's tennis does not exist in Australia since neither team had any girls for us to play! Haha. To salvage the match, we paired up with the Australian men and played mixed doubles, which was really fun because we were able to get to know them better.

After tennis, we hit the beach! We went to Bondi beach in Sydney. Bondi is one of the most well-known beaches in Australia and as soon as we arrived, it was obvious why. The beach was beautiful. White sand, turquoise water with huge surfing waves, and colorful beach homes covering the hills surrounding the beach were unbelievable. After body surfing in the huge waves for about 30 minutes the lifeguards told us the waves and undertow were too dangerous and made us come out. We were bummed, but Bondi beach also has cute shops and restaurants so we all went exploring! Overall, it was a perfect day to wrap up this trip of a lifetime.

While Thursday was the last full day, most of the team also had most of the day Friday to do whatever we wanted. Some left early in the morning on different flights, but the majority of us used to do last minute souvenir shopping, explore the city, and hit up the sights we missed as a group. I decided to venture off alone and go to the Australian Museum in downtown Sydney. For me, the museum was a perfect way to sum up the trip. While its visiting exhibit was about the Aztecs, many of the exhibits were unique to Australia. For example, my favorite exhibit was on the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

Since one of my majors is anthropology, I am fairly familiar with indigenous peoples of the Americas but did not know anything about those of Australia. It was really fun to compare and contrast the historical and cultural differences between the two and how they were treated by the colonists. Finally, there was a "Surviving Australia" exhibit that had all the deadly animals in Australia. Pretty cool! I spent the rest of the day aimlessly walking around the city and exploring. While I'm disappointed this adventure is over, I am excited for the 36-hour trip back to Oberlin to be over and for the season to start. We play University of Chicago on Sunday. Goyeo!

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January 29 - Entry by Sarah Hughes

Yesterday, we took a tour of the Sydney Opera House and were given the opportunity to further explore everything that Old Sydney has to offer. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day and was a bit foggy, making some of the scenes and views from the Sydney Harbor slightly less appealing. Nonetheless, the vastness and architecture of the Sydney Opera House still managed to amaze us.

Our tour guide, Alan, was extremely charismatic and provided many personal anecdotes. He especially communicated his awe and appreciation for the original architect, the late Jorn Utzon, who created the design and served as the chief architect of this project until he was forced to resign because officials believed the project to be too ambitious for the time. We were all surprised to discover that Utzon has never seen the finished product of the Sydney Opera House to this day. All in all we all were very happy and excited to explore this international symbol of architecture, art, and music.

Additionally, Old Sydney houses Australia's Contemporary Museum of Art, which a lot of us decided to go through. Their collection of aboriginal art was particularly interesting and gave our experience of this international museum an Australian identity.

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January 27 - Entry by Olivia Hay

Yesterday was our travel day from Melbourne to Sydney and it was also my 20th birthday! Which is why I've been nominated to blog today. The day started out a bit rough.... Our flight was at 6 am so we had to get up at 3 in the morning. At the time this seemed like the worst thing to ever happen to me on my birthday (3 am thoughts, don't judge me too harshly) but it turned out to not be so bad because we got a lot more time to hang around Sydney.

There was nothing planned for today other than checking in to the hotel so we got the day to explore the city.It turns out that January 26th is also Australia Day. At first we thought that this was similar to Independence Day in the US, but it turns out that this holiday isn't about Australia becoming an independent state but rather marks the day that westerners first set foot in Australia. We also learned that (naturally) the indigenous population isn't too enthralled with this holiday and instead refers to it as invasion day.

At any rate, there was a lot going on because of the holiday (concerts, fireworks, you name it) so it was cool to see all the festivities going on in town. I ended up going to the ArtGallery of New South Wales with some of my teammates and exploring some of Chinatown.Our hotel is right in the center of the city and Sydney seems pretty walkable, so we've had access to a lot of cool restaurants and fun parts of town. Both the men's and women's teams ended up doing karaoke together last night too which was also a lot of fun!!

Unfortunately, it's been pretty rainy in Sydney (which I guess is good for those of us who keep getting sunburned...), but everyone was glad to have theopportunity to have a day just for us.

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February 1 - Entry by Ariana Abayomi
Saturday, January 25^th, 2014 - Second D ay at the Australian Open
Today was a beautiful day in Melbourne. After we tested the waters with surfing the previous day, we returned to our primary sport. On solid ground, the way I like it. We took the scenic route by the Yarra River to the gates and split up for the first matches of the day. Though some set off to watch old friends playing in the tournament and the action on Centre Court, most of the Oberlin women's tennis team choose to start our day with some women's doubles, looking out for the pros' doubles strategy in an effort to sharpen our own skills.

Final Score
Sara Errani (ITA)/Roberta Vinci (ITA) def Mona Barthel (GER)/Mandy Minella (LUX) 6-0, 6-2

On our way to Hisense Arena, we fought through a flood of tennis fans waiting in line to get into the Heineken Beer Garden. We swiftly bypassed this obstacle, because we still had our main goal in sight. Tennis always comes first!

The stadium was packed, so Oberlin had to spread out and represent all over the stadium. Some of us were satisfied by normal fan seats... while others choose to watch from the seats of the higher-ups.

At Hisense, we watched several big name players, including Milos Raonic, Kei Nishikori, Garbine Muguruz, and two American women: Madison Brengle and Coco Vandeweghe.

As the day wound down, Alexandra and I closed our Australian Open adventure with more doubles.

Final Score
Ekaterina Makarova (RUS)/Elena Vesnina (RUS) def Dominika Cibulkova (SVK)/Kristen Flipkens (BEL) 6-4, 5-7, 6-2

The team wrapped up our night with good Thai food and eccentric flavors of ice cream!

Needless to say, it waas a good day.

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January 27 - Entry by Jackie McDermott
The Oberlin women's tennis team has experienced so many amazing firsts while in Australia!

Thursday was our first day in the heart of Melbourne. We spent the morning touring the Queen Victoria market, a historic landmark that spans two city blocks. We grabbed lots of souvenirs, like our first boomerangs decorated with aboriginal art, and strolled the immense displays of delicious fresh produce, breads, meats, and cheeses, as well as tantalizing Australian restaurants. A few of our girls even enjoyed kangaroo meat for the first time!

Next we traveled to lunch at an outdoor cafe in our first visit to Federation Square in Melbourne's bustling city center. After strolling across the bridge and taking in the remarkable skyline we came upon dozens of Melbournians in the square watching the Open on a jumbotron in bean bags and beach chairs. After lunch, some of us joined the locals watching afternoon matches, while others enjoyed strolls along the Yarra River. Sarah, Erin, Mayada, Emily and I gave some Aussie coins to a silly, flirtatious clown that took a liking to Emily.

We swapped out our street clothes for tennis whites when we then headed to the historic Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. The former site of the Australian Open and several Davis cup matches, Kooyong features clay and grass courts as far as the eye can see. Oberlin alumni Bob Moses and his friend Maurice Broom, who himself played in the Australian Open Juniors, were our gracious hosts for our first time playing on grass. Maurice even gave us a few serve pointers and made us serve with our eyes closed to remind us to keep our motions consistent.

For dinner a few of our team members pitched in, grilling a traditional Aussie barbecue. We then had the opportunity to step onto the historic Kooyong center court stadium, where such greats as Rod Laver and Jimmy Connors have played. Kooyong's incredible beauty was made even more enjoyable by our hosts and all of the Kooyong staff and members that were so excited to talk tennis with us. Playing at Kooyong was an amazing honor and a truly memorable experience.

Our first visit to the gleaming skyline of Federation Square and the green grass of Kooyang tennis club on Thursday left us all wishing that it would not be our last.

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January 24 - Entry by Emma Brezel
After an exciting day at the Open, we got up bright and early to get our first hit in Australia. We played at a local club situated right on the beautiful harbor in Williamstown. It was a productive first practice, but it was definitely tricky getting used to the heat and the wind.

After a two-hour hit we took the bus down to the town beach to see a presentation on tennis strategy and the mental game. With an hour to spare before the presentation, the team was able to enjoy the beach and the spectacular view of Melbourne.

The presenter was Craig O'Shannessy, who is the lead tennis analyst for the New York Times, the ATP World Tour, the WTA Tennis and Tennis Magazine. He has also coached numerous current touring pros. Craig was extremely insightful and by breaking down tennis into numbers he helped us look at tennis from a much different perspective.

Later that day, the men's and women's teams headed to a play matches against a local club. It was really interesting to play on red clay, which is a much different surface than the hard courts we usually play on. We had an awesome time playing with and meeting local kids, many of who are planning to play college tennis in the States. After a couple hours of matches we ended our long day with a barbecue at the club. It was a really awesome way to start off our playing in Australia!

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January 23 - Entry by Grace Porter

We spent our first morning in Melbourne checking out the Day 2 tournament action at the Australian Open. We arrived fairly early in the morning and spent the rest of the day watching some of the top players in the world compete. In particular, several American women proved very successful in their first round matches, including Lauren Davis who hails from our very own NE Ohio! A few of our players, unfortunately myself not included, caught a few minutes of Federer, Murray, and Sharapova out on the practice courts. In general, the overall consensus was that the Australian Open > the US Open: there are free water fountains and water bottle fill-up stations everywhere, the practice courts are extremely available to viewers (security is very lax), the local fans bring a crazy energy to the matches, and the arenas and surrounding area are very clean and aesthetically pleasing.

My favorite match-up of the day was that of Irina Falconi, an American from New Jersey, former top 70 in the world, and Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, former top 15. Kanepi took the first set easily 6-2, but Falconi battled back in a close 2nd eventually winning 6-4. Temperatures were in the 90's and the players' exhaustion was palpable, both slowing down during long rallies and delaying during changeovers. In the 3rd set Falconi fired up and showed a second wind, going up 5-2 and arriving at her first match point; however, Kanepi had the crowd pulling for her while Falconi simultaneously choked, and evened it out to 5-5 in the 3rd. Eventually, Falconi pulled out a 7-5 win for the match. She was an awesome opponent to watch and we will definitely be looking for her in the future. Ariana even got her autograph!

We were very happy tennis enthusiasts at the end of the day, recapping all we saw to each other on the bus-ride back to our apartments - although many of us had severe sun burns to which we are now tending.

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January 20 - Entry by Alex Kahn
I decided to come to Australia a week early so I could see the Great Barrier Reef. I've grown up in and around the ocean and snorkeling through coral reefs is one of my favorite things to do in the universe so to me the idea of coming half way around the world and being so close to the biggest reef but not being able to see it would have driven me absolutely crazy. So, I did all of my research and planned out a Coral Sea adventure for myself!

The last week I had back home before leaving I did an intensive introductory scuba diving certification class so that I could do a three-day live-board trip when I arrived in Cairns.

This is my first day on land after those three crazy days and I still feel like the world is swaying! But my trip was absolutely incredible. At the moment, I can't think of any experience that I have had in my life that is as awe inspiring and being beneath the ocean, swimming with a rainbow of corals, fish, turtles, rays, eels, nudibranchs and even sharks. The Great Barrier Reef is absolutely magnificent, and for me to spend some time not looking down on it from above, but being right in the thick of the action was phenomenal.

We even did a night dive! When you kick on the night dive it excites plankton that then starts to glow green and it feels like you are swimming through a magical kingdom, although it always feels a bit magical down under the water. And the night dives are when the sharks come out! There was one that must have been seven feet long! Ah!
And not was only Brian the, 148-year-old sea turtle, clearly a nice guy, but the other divers on board were wonderful people and spending three jam-packed days with them was a blast.

And now I get to go back down to Melbourne and meet up with my favorite bunch of people! What a trip!

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January 17 - Entry by Anna Treidler

I arrived in Melbourne last Tuesday with my teammate Alex, who after spending a day with me in the city flew up to scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef. I opted to stay in Melbourne until the rest of the team arrives.

Melbourne has been a perfect city for me to travel around on my own. For the most part I have spent my days walking around and taking in the sights. The weather has been good and the city is fairly flat, so walking is a perfect way to explore. At this point I have walked enough that I really feel familiar with the neighborhood I am staying in (Fitzroy) as well as much of downtown Melbourne. When I want to go somewhere further, public transportation has been very accessible and easy to manage.

One of the highlights of the trip so far was taking the tram down to St Kilda beach with Alex on the first day that we spent here. We arrived at the beach in time to watch a gorgeous sunset and to see the penguins that walk along the rocks of the St Kilda pier every night. Another highlight has been walking around Fitzroy, a hip neighborhood with tons of cool shops, art galleries and restaurants. I also really enjoyed visiting Brighton Beach. The beach is unique in that it has a long row of small beach huts each painted differently. I loved all the colors.

My favorite aspect of Melbourne is the street art that covers so many of the city's walls. I have spent hours this week wandering up and down alleys filled with vibrantly colored graffiti. It has become a sort of scavenger hunt that has really kept me busy and engaged this whole trip, searching for alleys and finding my favorite murals. On Thursday I signed up for a street art tour lead by an eccentric and hilarious street artist. He took us on a 3-hour walk around the city in which he showed us many of the important alleys, told us about prominent artists (many of which he knew personally), and explained to us the history and politics of much of the art.

My winter term project is making a blog focused on the street art of Melbourne. My goal for the project was to analyze the art in order to learn about the culture and politics of the city. I knew that Melbourne was famous for its street art, but I could not have imagined how immense and impressive the body of work here in Melbourne is. Needless to say, I have a lot of material to put in my blog and have had a lot of fun taking pictures of and writing about the art.