MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian Open offered NBA-style on-court seating for the first time this year, priced at an exorbitant-sounding 25,000 Australian dollars ($18,900), for the men’s final for an up-close-and-personal experience. ADVERTISING MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian Open offered
MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian Open offered NBA-style on-court seating for the first time this year, priced at an exorbitant-sounding 25,000 Australian dollars ($18,900), for the men’s final for an up-close-and-personal experience.
But when the demand spiked after a Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal final was set, those seats might have qualified as a bargain. Fans dug deep into their bank accounts and traveled long distances to witness the improbable rematch between two great Grand Slam champions.
Ticket prices for the final, which ranged from about $300 to $600 at face value, quickly spiraled upward. Tickets for under $1,500 for anywhere in Rod Laver Arena were nearly impossible to find; one ambitious Ticketmaster listing offered a pair of front-row seats for about $20,000 each.
Jessica Ye and April Liu, Chinese students studying in Melbourne, bought tickets for $1,900 in the hours before the final on the reselling website Viagogo.
“It’s jolly worth it,” said Ye, a Federer fan. “Of course, for him, yeah. But if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t do it.”
Liu, who brought Spanish and Catalan flags to show her support for Nadal, was equally single-minded. “If only Roger plays, I’m not going to buy it, either,” she said.
Some fans who had attended earlier rounds of the tournament and flown home scurried back to Melbourne for the final.
Ronny Chow, a lawyer from Hong Kong, attended the first week of the tournament, then booked a last-minute trip back to Melbourne with his wife to see the final.
He scheduled a 10-hour stay in Melbourne with nine-hour flights each way. Their plane and match tickets combined for about $19,000, he said.
Chow had seen Federer win his 17th Grand Slam title, at Wimbledon in 2012, and said he felt he “shouldn’t miss this one.” So Chow got to witness Federer’s 18th Grand Slam title, too, as Federer defeated Nadal in five sets.
“It’s pathological; it’s addictive,” Chow said of his tennis habit.
Juliann Greene, from Kailua, Hawaii, had been drawn to Federer’s graceful movements over the years because of her background in dance. She booked a trip to Melbourne for the first three rounds of the tournament, fearing that her chances to see the aging Federer play were running out.
Greene extended her trip by three days to see Federer win his fourth-round match against Kei Nishikori, and she flew home to Hawaii before the quarterfinals.
Not long after her homecoming, her husband sensed that she would rather be somewhere else.
“He said, ‘If it was me, and it was John Elway with the Broncos right before he retired, and somebody said, “Here’s some tickets,” there’s no way I’d come home,’” Greene said. “I said, ‘Don’t tell me that right now!’ He said, ‘Well, it’s true. We totally miss you, but I know this is so big for you.’”
Greene’s mind was quickly made up.
“So I immediately pulled out my phone and I started checking flights,” she said, laughing. “On the car ride home from the airport. I had just gotten off a 10 1/2-hour red-eye, and I started looking at flights.”
Greene booked a refundable flight, accounting for a possible quarterfinal loss by Federer. When he advanced to the semifinals, she boarded the flight and arrived two hours before the match.
Saskia van Rheenen, a Dutch graduate student, had attended the first week of the tournament before her travels took her to Wanaka, a small town on the South Island of New Zealand. Once Federer reached the final, she could not shake the idea of returning.
“I thought, no, it’s too much money, too much hassle,” van Rheenen said. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was in Wanaka, and I thought if I’m going to do it, I have to do it now, because if Nadal wins, the prices are going to go crazy, and then I can’t afford it anymore.”
Van Rheenen went for it, first buying a ticket to the final for about $1,600, then booking a flight to Melbourne for $530.
“It is a lot of money, but for me, I thought, I’m never going to get this chance again,” she said. “This is probably their last Grand Slam final against each other, and for me, it was literally my No. 1 bucket list item, a Federer-Nadal match. And I was only a three-hour flight away.”
There were no regrets.
“Already after the first set, I sent a message to my family: ‘It’s already worth the money,’” she said. “I already forgot about the money. This was, hands down, the best day of my life.”
Despite the possible payoff from putting a golden ticket up for sale, many fans who had tickets to what became their dream final said even the loftiest prices had not tempted them.
Fiona Wong, an Australian Federer fan who has the Twitter handle @federering, had bought tickets to the finals for the past five years, ultimately selling them once Federer was eliminated.
Wong, who attended Federer’s previous six matches at the tournament, said the thought of selling her ticket to the final had never crossed her mind, even when she saw list prices of more than $15,000.
“This is so cliché, but it’s priceless to me,” she said. “When am I going to see Federer in a Slam final again? Any amount of money, it wouldn’t matter.”
Others left on the outside longed for a close-up view.
