Aussie Open and towels, really cool towels

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MELBOURNE, Australia — Everybody here wants the towel. Players are said to be stashing extras from the locker room in their luggage, and fans are scampering to the edge of the courts begging not for autographs but for the icky, really sweaty towels (there’s been this once-in-forever heatwave here that has melted train tracks and knocked out power and even stopped ice cream from being sold one night because it was too hot to keep the ice cream cold).

You can find them on EBay and even get brand new ones on the Australian Open website under the tab ‘Towels.’

But what’s even better than the towels is the stuffed wombat. Those you can’t buy at the souvenir store or, so far, on EBay. To get the stuffed wombat you have to actually win a championship at the 2009 Australian Open. Or steal one.

Late Saturday night in my car back to the hotel, a woman who was friends with Mike and Bob Bryan had a big box of flowers and towels and their two stuffed wombats. The Bryan brothers won the men’s doubles title Saturday night and they got their wombats. And those wombats ended up in a box that was set down on the seat beside me in a tournament shuttle back to the hotel. It was tempting to try to snatch one of the wombats. Who needs two anyway? But the wombats, the towels and whatever else was in that box went untouched. Good luck getting those in your luggage, Bob and Mike!

— Diane Pucin