You might think journalists have it easy, travelling the world to exciting places. Here's the reality...
It isn't just the players who travel from place to place every week. Sometimes the journalists do too, and the TV people who film those little interviews you might catch on the news with a player talking about the match they've played that day.
You know, with the tournament logo and a couple of sponsors names on a black backdrop.
Sponsors
This week you'll see Barclays name up there. They are the new title sponsor of the tournament and boy, are they keen.
There's a bank set up on site, there's the Barclays Blues Band boogying away by the Irish Village, there's a fine collection of tennis legends - Barclays ambassadors all - who are around the place for the next couple of weeks.
Ille Nastase, Pat Cash and Virginia Wade are just a few of the big names. Former Brit No 1 Annabel Croft is also there doing double duty as a TV commentator.
The reality
But I digress. It might seem glamorous, this travel business, flitting from one tournament to another. Here's the reality: I was up at 5.30am to leave the hotel at 6am - too early for breakfast.
Then I did the flying bit from Doha, arriving in Dubai 45 minutes later. That, actually, is about as short as a trip gets. Sometimes you have to fly halfway around the world, like from New York to Bali.
Then there was a surprisingly lengthy wait for the luggage, which took as long to arrive as the flight had taken. At least the luggage arrived. Sometimes it doesn't, which can be a particular problem for the players.
Daniela Hantuchova had to practise in jeans for a day or two in Bali last year, if my memory cells are functioning correctly. No wonder they always, always, carry their racquets on board with them.
Brave man
Although once, in Sydney, the gate security tried to stop Lindsay Davenport from taking her racquets on board, after she'd just won the tournament and was on her way to the Australian Open.
It takes a brave man to take on someone as tall as Davenport, but they were not to be messed with. "But look at her," said Davenport, pointing to Martina Hingis going on board with her bat bag. "Why is she allowed on with her racquets?"
"Well, she's a tennis player," they responded. Lindsay always did have a low profile, but really! And after all the fuss the flight was half empty anyway.
Australians are the friendliest people in the world, but they can be awfully officious. They're known as "jobsworths" - as in "It's more than my job's worth to let you do that".
Have it easy
Anyway, now I'm after a little sympathy. Players have it easy, you know. They don't have to work on the day they arrive from somewhere distant. Although they do quite often go out for a quick practice to help them loosen up again. But we journos have to get straight down to it, maybe working late into the night.
And because the most important players often play late in the evening, the writers have to be at their peak at the end of a long day, and, at that point in time, it's not always easy to get the right words in the right order.
Sometimes, nine to five sounds like a better alternative.
Did You Know?
- In 1999, Serena Williams became the lowest seed to win the US open women's title in the Open era since 1968.
- Chris Evert won the maximum number of French Open women's singles titles with seven.
- Althea Gibson was the first black woman to win the women's singles crown in Wimbledon in 1957 (and 1958).
- Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Monica Seles all won the French Open as their first crown.
- Legendary player Suzanne Lenglen has a court named after her at Roland Garros.
- Martina Navratilova is the co-author of mystery novels The Total Zone, Breaking Point and Killer Instinct.
- Compiled by Ravi Kant Srivastava
