Nigel Kennedy performs ahead of the Men's Final match. Photo / Getty Images
The men's final of the 2017 Australian Open was always going to be something special, but it provided us with an unexpected highlight before the match even got underway.
As Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal waited in the locker room before strolling out onto centre court, we saw something you
hardly ever witness in sport.
Classical violinist Nigel Kennedy and the Orchestra of Life performed before the main event, and it's safe to say they gave most of the crowd at Rod Laver Arena an experience very few would ever have enjoyed before.
Kennedy shredded the electric violin in a song called Face Off, which was composed specifically for Sunday's final. It was definitely different to the usual pre-match entertainment you get at sporting fixtures.
So often football codes in Australia suffer the embarrassment of pre-match entertainment gone horribly wrong - think a power outage robbing Billy Idol of his crowning moment before the 2002 NRL grand final and Meat Loaf falling flat at the AFL decider in 2011.
