i always wanted to see how a female player wud handle nadal's spin ! shud be fun ,lets see what teams they make. but is there any way it can be watched live on net?

Lovely gesture by all of these guys ... it is pretty devasting news in Haiti.

Wow! That's amazing. How I would love to be in Melbourne and watch them playing. This one of those excellent value events that come out of nowhere.

So Fedex was responsible for the whole thing. That's very sweet. Good to know that the World #1 is a nice person too..

I wonder how they'll pair up. I think Sharapova is the fourth girl playing. I doubt we'll be able to watch it live, but I'll try British Eurosport online.

I hope they collect a lot of money,

This is a great Idea and kudos to Fed, Nadal and co for caring especially Federer for organising it, shows great qualities in him. Shame we will not get to see it, maybe they will show it on the news, after all it is to support a tragedy. Love to see the top two playing doubles together, its always so much fun and will be great crowd pleaser for the tournament.

yes, it's too bad there is no livestream. I'll see if I can connect with some people I know to get eyewitness reports.

yes cheryl please do try something like that :)

Hit For Haiti IS going to be streamed!

details coming

awesomee ricky!! pleasse let us know :D :D

Thankfully the AO has seen sense. this is going to be great fun! 9:00 pm EST, I believe.

im hearing 10 PM Eastern on ESPN360

I guess that means 2 PM Melbourne time

www.espn360.com and the link should be there

fair play to federer for coming up with this idea. i'm not a fan of his particularly, but it's a damn good gesture considering they have ao starting the next day

what time would it be gmt? i can't work it out, haha

Ricky - unfortunately, not everyone will be able to access ESPN360. Hopefully, we can figure out a way for everyone to see.

Sib - it's 3:00 am GMT. LOL.

yeah ESPN360 is a joke

I bet fromsport will have it or someone on justin.tv will stream it

thanks cheryl. i'm too tired to stay up and watch it, but hopefully there'll be clips on youtube and stuff :)

Federer: "From my hotel window I can already see a huge line at federation square waiting to buy tickets for the 'hit for haiti' exo later today. Australians are great! Should be fun."

Nice quote ricky.

Way to go, Aussies! Showing up at a moment's notice for a great cause...I wish I were there, I'd go in an instant.

Good for Haiti, good for tennis ... wish I were there too.

so nadal's match is tomorrow and fed wants him to play an exo a day before his match. this roger is smart and cunning. nadal bought it hook line and sinker.

and not to be cruel or anything, its very bad in haiti but why arent this type of thing done for the chinese earthquake victims, or the iraqi victims or afghan victims or other major human suffering events going on, millions have died in those tragedies.

i just think as nice as it is to do such a thing, i dont think its roger's business to get into these things just before a slam starts. was there an event like this when the indoneian tsunami happened? i dont think so.

to pick and choose is not a wise idea. roger just stick to tennis mate, the real tennis. tell warren buffet and bill gates to give a few hundred million to help out the victims, they have all the money.

i think instead of this exo, they should say the 50% of the money earned in the 1st week of the tournament goes to haiti victims. something like that would be better.

the last thing roger needs is to get someone injured a day before the aussie open starts and he will be blamed.

i know he is being nice, but just think the money could have been raised in a different way.

don't be ridiculous atr. if rafa wasn't playing in the exo tomorrow he would be spending all day training. this way, he gets to train, whilst getting the feel of how well he's playing on the court and see how everyone else is playing. AND raising money for charity, which is the important thing

attacking, once again you made me laugh, but you also made me think...your point that a donation of tournament winnings by match winners would be a better way of expressing support is a fine thought, but it misses another point: when you make a big public deal out of an event like the Haiti earthquake disaster, you bring people's attention to it and you have an opportunity to motivate them to donate on their own!! In other words, it's not all about what the big tennis stars give to Haiti...it's all about getting EVERYone to donate and share in the experience of CARING. That gives this exhibition an edge in fundraising for Haiti victims, who surely need it.

So kudos to Federer and Nadal and the rest of them for moving full speed ahead towards this venture. BTW, it appears the www.australianopen.com website will be showing this exhibition live for all interested folks!!! So good. It's airing at 2pm Sunday, Melbourne time, which is 10pm EST. You can google for Melbourne time in your area, too.

Broadcasting will be on AO website embedded in the news article on the main page. Starts 2 pm Melbourne time which is +10 GMT. Enjoy

attackingtennisrulez,

Federer did participate in an exibition for the Tsunami victims. Watch the video
in this link:

http://www.gototennisblog.com/2010/01/16/roger-federer-organi zes-hits-for-haiti-benefit-with-top-tennis-stars/

Next time get the facts before sounding like an ignorant prick ;)

Kudos for Fed and the tennis stars for doing this, even with the AO beginning.
Shows that the tennis players care. Proud to be a tennis fan.

Play starts in one hour.

Bolbol,

I went to the Aussie webpage:

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/photos/2010-01-14 /201001141263442411378.html

I don't see any links there to watch the action. Am I missing something?

Also, is not ESPN360 supposed to show it online? I don't see any link there either.

Note: To people whose ISP providers don't pay for ESPN360:

http://www.userbytes.com/how-to-watch-espn360/

Andres17- Yes, they will embed the stream in the news feed in the main page.
Quote: "Yes, the live stream will be turned on at 2pm and be embedded in the news article on the home page. - AO web team."

Dana99 - extremely well said. Thanks for that.

I am inordinately excited about this for some reason. :)

Dana, that WAS well-said.

Hit for Haiti teams announced: RED: #Federer, #Hewitt, #Stosur, @serenawilliams1 BLUE: #Nadal, #Clijsters, #Djokovic, @andyroddick.

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/hitforhaiti.html
link to the stream

bolbol,

Thanks for helping us find the live stream. It was a nice thing to see, the players so friendly between them, even when they'll be at war from tomorrow on. It should be a nice Australian Open. May Roger win :)

That was a great event. Kudos to all players.

What a lovely way to start a tournament. All the players involved were so sweet and funny and laughing alot. It was for such a good cause. Inspirational!

absolutely awesome

exceeded expectations

and where is selfish Murray? Lifting weights?

oh yea where was murray? i guess murray wasnt invited by fed because lack of personality by murray. pretty dull guy is murray.

see how the organisers quickly sneaked in tomic after hewitt left.
otherwise there would be serious tension and possibly even a bust up if they were both on court and miked up.

Murray did not get the text (or the call) from Fed on this one

and yes, I also mentioned immediately when it happened how awesome it was that they had to wait to bring Tomic in until Hewitt left

also some Hewitt-Clijsters awkwardness

I was right smack in the middle of the stands at Rod Laver Arena for this one. There are no words, NO WORDS, to describe how amazingly awesome and how full of win Hit for Haiti is. It's simply so much fun, laughter, joy, kindness and amazing shots and randomness here and there.

I love their light-hearted rapport. Nole especially is a charmer, and I think he was having the most fun on court. I love the little red NOLE on his pants and how he played along with that. Fed tries his USO09 between-the-legs shot a several times and one of which was a complete fail muhahaha.

I love that little thing Fed and Rafa had when trying to out-grunt each other by just hitting to each other and then Nole was going to sleep in mid-court and then missed the ball. Kim and Serena was also awesome! And A-Rod although there for a short period of time probably had the quote of exho with his foot-fault comment :D

All of them are able to make fun of themselves (Nole: I think I'm gonna retire this match) and did not take offense when being made fun of (A-Rod immitating Serena with the ball pointed at the linesman)...so much win.

There are also some really amazing shots and rallies made by the teams and some heart-stopping, breath-taking play that makes me forget that this is an exho.

Best AUD$10 spent EVER. And of course, me and my friends emptied our wallets into the donation boxes as well. Least we can do. :)

Amazing afternoon!

Ricki: Is there any way TT could get hold of a video and organise a subscription for members to view it - the proceeds to then be donated to the Hit for Haiti fund?

man it was so much fun, all have such great personalities.
rafa, rog and nole are super cool guys.

this is a link posted by a friend on tennis.x which is brilliant! (particularly what federer says about rafa, murray and davydenko!).

http://www.gototennis.blog.com/2010/01/15/roger-federe r-on-unpleasant-questions-bullsht-and-tiger-woods/

thanks to contador.

I did not get much sleep tonight, but it was worth it! They were so great! I enjoyed every bit of the match! Nole was real joker once again and he came there to enjoy it and have fun. Rafa was as sweet as he could be taking the game seriously with an aim to win every point just as he always does. It was funny when he was struggling with the serve and said he was not ready to show his new serve yet :)) The best part I would say was when Nole and Rafa celebrated the way brothers Bryan do...altogether, it was such an enjoyable event and for the great cause. I simply loved it!

it wasnot possible for me to watch. I am sad i missed such an event..please can any one tell me where can I watch the hillites of it !!plzzzz

pheww found a couple of videos on youtube :)

hahahaah wowww !! please if anyone has links to more hilites or e recorded re;ecast please tell.sooo much fun .rafa 'beatifual roger' when roger dumps a bakhand into the net..and serena's footfault moment !lmao novak massaging andy on changeover lolz :D :D these guys yare great

All together for those who want it..."Hit for Haiti"

entrance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWsK3AOXWH8

part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-qCmG7yuAA

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq9trlA7Jiw

part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8-Ia3DbxJg

part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jFR3jSx_V4

part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGS6eTJQbq8

thank you tennislover :D

Thanks everyone who provided the links. What a great idea Roger had, It would be good if they sold a video for all regions of it to raise more for the relief funds. Perhaps this could be a feature at all GS to raise funds for charity.

It seemed like so much fun for the spectators and the players, and to raise money as well for such a worthy cause just puts the icing on the cake.

I liked the part of federer and nadal grunts. :D Then the federer comment about how nadal plays him, " I stay here all the time hitting backhands and then he goes down the line. " Of course the bryan brothers way of celebration was marvelous.
Truly superb event.

I thought it was delightful. I was disappointed that Roddick had to leave early, but Roger and Rafa were outstanding. "Nice shot, Roger" hahahahahaha.

I felt a little bad for Sam Stosur. She looked as though she felt out-of-place.

novak was hilarious too. loved it when kim hit a serve into his bum, haha. and when he was massaging roddick. good to see they've sorted stuff out after the dispute at uso08. and when him and kim massaged rafa too. brilliant :D

Hopefully this will foreshadow future charity events. Very nice to see the players give back, especially at a time like this.

This was a superb event and a great idea from Roger, both him and Rafa were great, especially the grunting bit, he hee, Djokovic of course was his usual funny self, so good to see them all having fun together, great for everybody involved.

i think stosur felt overwhelmed by the big names of mens tennis, rafa,rog and nole were really confident talking so much saying all kinds of things, i reckon stosur just felt intimidated.

a big thanks to you tennislover.......for the links!