I am still here in Chennai, India and I will be for both weeks of the Australian Open. I am staying in possibly the only three star hotel in Asia and Europe that does not pay for the Star Sports channel. I can see the Australian Open matches, they are on the screen, but it looks like a porn station that is not available on your local cable feed. The green courts look solarized and there is a continuous buzz accompanied by flashing lines and distortion. Now and then the screeen becomes unwatchable and I hit the television to bring it to its senses. Not helpful. It turns the television off which means I have to walk to the other side of the room, turn the wall switch off then on again, and start all over.

But I can see the ball and the players so let’s look at some of the top women play their first round matches.

Justine Henin-Hardenne’s first opponent is young Polish player Marta Domachowska. Compared to Domachowska, Henin-Hardenne is an all-court player. She’s also an intelligent veteran. Henin-Hardenne has a simple but effective strategy against Domachoswka: hit down the line, then hit cross court, then hit down the line, etc., until the court opens up and she can hit a winner.

Domachowska turned pro in 2001 but she still shows inexperience. After losing the first set 2-6, she had Henin-Hardenne down 15-30 in the first game of the second set. Her first priority should have been to return the ball and force Henin-Hardenne to make a play. Instead, she went for too much on the return and put the ball into the net. In the next game she hit an error going for a backhand winner at 30-30 to give Henin-Hardenne a break point. It was downhill from there. Henin-Hardenne won the match, 6-2, 6-1.

Venus and Serena Williams are playing in their first tournament of the year. They spent the season break playing exhibitions against each other. It was either a smart approach to preparing for this slam, a comfortable way to get back into competitive tennis after missing the end of last year, or yet another attempt to circumvent the tennis gods by skipping the warmup tournaments that most people play yet winning the tournament anyway. Their current part-time approach won each of the sisters a slam last year. Let’s see if that continues.

Venus is playing Tsvetana Pironkova from Bulgaria, currently ranked 94th. She’s another in the long line of baseline smashers, a trend that is likely to continue with the current racket technology.

Any player can expect to have ups and down in their first tournament of the year but Venus lost the second set 0-6 after winning the first 6-2. That is a bit unusual. Venus served for the match at 6-5 in the third set but she got anxious and started hitting balls long. On break point she hit a high looping forehand that went long and I got ready for the tiebreak. Then I remembered that the Australian Open does not have a third set tiebreak. The match continues until one player wins by two games. That puts a lot of pressure on the server – if a player loses her serve, her opponent can serve for the match.

With Venus serving at 7-8, 30-30, Pironkova popped a ball up in the air and Venus moved in to put it away. Still anxious, she overhit it and missed the court completely. She hit another error on the next point and, just like that, the match was over. Pironkova won, 2-6, 6-0, 9-7.

Clearly Venus could have benefitted from more match play.

Serena, in a lime green outfit and bauble earrings it seems important to say, was sailing along against Li Na. She’d won the first set 6-3 and was up a break in the second set at 5-3. Li had her opportunities but she had converted only one of nine break points. Serena’s main difficulty was the chair umpire, he asked her to speed up her play. Serena replied that she had other things to worry about, such as winning this match.

Then, serving for the set at 5-4, Serena started spraying balls everywhere but in the court. The more frustrated she got, the harder she hit the ball. At one point she yelled at herself, “You’re such a loser!” Not the best response under the circumstances. She served consecutive double faults and the set was even at 5-5.

Serena’s troubles continued in the tiebreaker. By the time she hit an accidental winner by shorthopping a deep ball sharply cross court, she was down 1-6 and the tiebreak was over. The match was tied at one set each.

Serena still couldn’t right herself at the beginning of the third set, she lost her first service game. But she struggled through a long second game, managed to win it then cruised from there on. She won the next four games and the match, 6-3, 6-7(1), 6-1.

When she was asked if this was a good way to start the tournament she said, “I think so because I haven’t played in a while.” She explained her lapse at the end of the second set by saying, “Yeah, I lost my thought train.” If she loses her train against a higher ranked player, she could be joining her sister on the sidelines.

You’d think athletes are mostly a laconic bunch, not given to spouting off in any consistent way in public. This past week seems a little different in that regard, from two different sporting fronts.

As we rev up toward the Winter Olympics in a few weeks, U.S. ski champion Bode Miller has been offering up training tips on TV’s “60 Minutes” and he’s been causing a rucus. It seems Mr. Miller reported that he had, on occasion, raced while hung over from a night of drinking.

As the protests mounted and people called on Miller to apologize, I kept hoping someone would ask him what the slalom gates looked like as he came down the course. Were there twice the number in his fractured vision? I know on the rare occasions when I would work out stoned in the pool the lane lines on the bottom seemed to move up and down and around as I chugged from side to side. Surely ski gates must do the same, I pondered. They could have asked him if it feels any easier landing on your tush when you’re drunk as opposed to sober. But no one did. We were supposed to feel outraged and offended. I suppose I should feel a twinge of regret that Bode Miller is into more than just the Breakfast of Champions but I don’t. Sorry. Athletes are only slightly larger than life in my book, and I don’t expect them to be as pure as the driven snow. As long as they compete honestly and don’t run over anyone on their way to the finish line.

A more annoying boo-boo perhaps was what occurred in the world of tennis from the Heineken tournament in Auckland this past week. Teen sensation Andy Murray of Scotland put his foot in his mouth after completing his match against Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen when he said “we were both playing like women.” The crowd took great exception and pounced immediately upon the poor lad with a chorus of boos.

Andy should have remembered where he was. In a country where the Prime Minister is a woman and the populace gave women the right to vote way back in the 1890s. Gulp. And he should remember where he will be, starting Monday, for the next two weeks. He’ll really have to watch his mouthings in Australia, the Land of Manly Women and Manly Men. Sometimes I think there is very little difference between the two when it comes to sport. Someone advised me once that if I wanted to make inroads among Australian men I had better play “one of the boys.” It’s been exaggerated over the years, but it’s still true. The degree to which an Aussie man likes a girl can be measured by the degree to which she can be a good “mate.” Do they even use the term “wife” Down Under? I wonder. To be one of the boys, you have to knock back some serious slabs of tinnies in addition to hitting an inside-out forehand without your titties getting in the way. A tall order, but the women get the job done.

Even during the recent racially-tinged riots occurring around Sydney the women were caught on camera dukking it out with other women. “Good punch, honey,” I was thinking, before I caught myself in something resembling shame. It was a veritable free-for-all, and the women know they have a place at the table in that now too. Whether they should want to sit at that particular table is another matter.

So Andy Murray got wised up in a hurry. Reportedly he seemed rather stunned by the crowd’s reaction. And he is, in his defense, barely out of his teens. And he does come from a land where tennis still goes on in white costume only, thank you. And a country that is probably going to be the last Grand Slam tennis country to award equal prize money to the women.

This is Andy Murray’s first trip Down Under; he’s only been there a few weeks now. But after the Australian Open concludes, hopefully he can return to his native soil refreshed and carrying some new and democratic ideas to Old Europe.

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I woke up this morning here in Chennai, India to the smell of burning rubber and cloth. Today is the beginning of Pongal, a festival to thank Mother Nature for her harvest. People clean their houses for the festival and, to make way for the new, they burn the old. That was the smell I awoke to: burning clothes, tires and other old objects. Everyone, from the rich to the poor, buys a new outfit for Pongal. Clothes retailers must appreciate the practice.

It was hard to know if the burning was anything out of the usual because the air is clogged with dust and the exhaust of the two-stroke tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws), motorcycles, scooters and cars that treat stoplights like caution signs and roll through roundabouts in a dangerous but effective ballet. Bicycle-driven fruit stands and hauling carts slowly make their way through the middle of the mess.

I prepared for my trip here by talking with a woman who comes here often for business. She would happily move here if her partner were willing because she loves the people so much. It turns out that the day after I arrived, Chennai was hosting the finals of the ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament, the only ATP International Series tournament in India. I tried to get tickets online before arriving but they were only available at the venue – halfway around the world in this case. I called IMG Delhi – IMG is the organizer of the tournament – and asked them to connect me to IMG Chennai. A nice young man named Arjun told me that the semifinals and finals were already sold out but if I called him when I arrived in Chennai, he was sure he could squeeze me in somewhere. “I’m arriving at ten o’clock at night,” I protested. “That’s fine,” he said, “I’ll be working twenty hour days anyway.”

I did call Arjun when I arrived. He met me outside the stadium just before the finals began and gave me my free ticket in the sixth row. Now you can see why some people want to move here.

Chennai was very excited about the finals because two young Indian players, Prakash Amritraj (Vijay’s son) and Rohan Bopanna, were in the doubles final. This is the first time I’ve seen the new doubles format: no-ad scoring and a supertiebreak instead of a third set. I predicted that no-ad scoring might make it harder to hide a weak-serving crafty player because there are no deuce points – whoever wins the fourth point wins the game. So far this has been true. Amritraj and Bopanna beat a veteran team with a weak server in a supertiebreak. The other doubles team today, Michal Mertinak from Slovakia and Petr Pala from the Czech Republic, also beat a veteran team.

We last saw Mertinak as he was served up to Mario Ancic in the final rubber of last year’s Davis Cup. Luckily he seems to have recovered well from that loss to get to a final here. His partner, Pala, is an accomplished doubles player. He’s been a French Open finalist and has four doubles titles.

Amritraj is the lighter hitting member of the Indian team. He has a segmented serve. It looks like someone taught him each separate part of the stroke then forgot to tell him how to put all of the parts together. Bopanna is the big hitter. He’s so long that he has to splay his legs, one forward and one backwards, when he squats down in the front of the I formation (one player squats on the midline in front of the server) so he can get low enough. The Indian team resorted to the I formation early because they got into trouble early. They lost their second service game to go down 1-2 then lost four out of the next five games to lose the first set, 2-6.

At the beginning of the second set, Amritraj and Bopanna started playing more aggressively, poaching and going for serves, and the crowd went crazy. It’s not the usual tennis venue here in Chennai. Spectators chanted and yelled, kids screamed during Mertinak and Pala’s serve and people continued their cellphone conversations throughout the points.

Despite their aggressive play, Amritraj and Bopanna showed weaknesses. Amritraj wasn’t quite quick enough to serve then cover the other side of the court using the I formation, Bopanna’s serve was inconsistent and he doesn’t volley well. Mertinak and Pala were able to exploit the weaknesses, Pala is particularly adept at finding open parts of the court, and they managed to win seven straight games and the match, 6-2, 7-5.

Among other reasons, the ATP changed doubles matches to no-ad with a supertiebreak so that doubles matches would be shorter. The match here lasted one hour and nine minutes, short enough so that promoters can put doubles before the singles final and have an audience for the match. At most tournaments, the doubles is after the singles and the stands are empty. So far the changes are working.

Ivan Ljubicic and Carlos Moya are the singles finalists. Moya has won the tournament the last two years and the crowd loves him. He’s on the down side of his career, though, and he’s not likely to win today if Ljubicic is serving well. This is possible because a rainstorm last night interrupted the Ljubicic’s semifinal match. He had to finish part of the first set and the second set this morning so me might be tired.

Both players struggled to begin with. Lubicic had two double faults in one game and Moya had some problems at the net – Ljubicic’s early strategy was to draw him there with short shots. Still, they managed to stay on serve in the first set though Ljubicic had to hit two aces and two service winners to fight off set points and get to 6-5.

The tiebreaker continued the same way. Ljubicic was down 0-4 and managed to get to 5-5 with the help of an ace. Moya passed Ljubicic to get a set point at 6-5 then Ljubicic came up with two more aces. If Ljubicic serves well, that’s bad news for Moya. Even worse, Moya hit a double fault on Ljubicic’s first set point to lose the tiebreaker and first set.

The first game of the second set was the best game of the match. Moya held serve but it took eighteen points, six of them ending with one or both players at the net. In the best point, Ljubicic hit an approach shot followed by an overhead. Moya got to the ball then hit an approach shot of his own only to have Ljubicic hit a backhand past him for a winner. Moya was not so lucky in his next two service games. Ljubicic hit returns for winners and kept coming to the net to get to 5-1.

Ljubicic closed out the match with an ace and a serve that set up a winner. Moya is a good baseliner but Ljubicic has a better all court game and too much serve. Ljubicic had his first title of the year, 7-6(6), 6-2.

After the match I didn’t know how to get back to the hotel so I walked up to a police office and asked him for help. He batted his eyes at me and said that he was originally from Nepal. After he found me a rickshaw taxi, he told me to pay 20 rupees less than the driver asked for and stuck his head inside the taxi. I think he wanted the 20 rupees difference in return for his help but I wasn’t quick enough to figure that out at the time. The rickshaw driver had an annoying Harpo Marx horn he used at every opportunity and, for some reason, insisted on driving part of the trip on dirt roads. Dirt roads in the U.S. are bumpy; dirt roads in India are hilly.

The evening after the match I switched from the American version of the flu I arrived with to an Indian version. I now have a bronchial irritation and the same cough as a few of my teachers at the yoga center where I am studying. So far it’s been worth it.