Surviving the Australian season in 10 steps

For the new kids and rusty ones, a list of  top ten tips to suvive the Australian season painlessly.

1. Choose your matches carefully. I know that Polona Hercog versus Lucie Hradecka might sound like a very exciting matchup. And wow, you’ve always wanted to see Benoit Paire play Robin Haase! They sound awesome! But maybe you should take a chill pill and choose wisely. Don’t go for matches in the middle of the night unless you absolutely can’t resist and always pick the ones with potential to be good. Getting up at 4 am to watch a player just because she wears a suit in her Twitter profile picture isn’t a good enough reason.
2. Tweet!
3. Save up some sick days. This goes for both school and work. Unless you can convince everyone you’ve got a deadly disease for two weeks, leave the excuses up for quarters and semis. Don’t be an amateur.
4. Easy on the coffee! Make sure you know exact how much caffeine you need. This way you won’t have insomnia on a night with a bad schedule or a rain delay.
5. Don’t waste your time on Federer and Djokovic. You can watch the final. Don’t waste your time on Samantha Stosur. She’ll lose first round.
6. Stock up on healthy snacks. Chocolate will give you bad skin and soda, cellulite. If you’re up all night watching tennis, you’re probably single. Don’t make it harder on yourself. You don’t want to be like a character on “Girls”.
7. Don’t think of Rafa.
8. It might seem like obvious advice, but sleep whenever you get a chance. Don’t let thoughts like “oh, the match is only two hours away. I’ll stalk my ex-girlfriend’s Facebook while I wait” ever cross your mind. You’re gonna need those two hours when you’re at work. And she was probably a bitch.
9. Use your “awoken time” as best as you can. Open two streams at once, play the Australian Open radio on your phone and watch Rod Laver Arena on TV. Follow so many matches at the same time you have no idea what’s going and where. It’s half the fun.
10. Save up money. Because when February comes, you’re gonna want to go to Australia next year so bad, you might as well start planning it.

Previously published on FierceTennis.com