Why is Steve Smith in Australia?

Carolina Panther WR Steve Smith has been in Australia this week watching the Australian Open tennis tournament. He sat in American John Isner's box for a match this week and got interviewed on ESPN by Pam Shriver (a couple of alert "Scott Says" readers first have pointed this out to me -- I didn't see it live -- but it's true).

Isner, who is from Greensboro and is a Panther fan, told reporters after his match (which he won) about Smith: "I didn't know him before this. Somebody told me... he was coming to town. He had heard of me before. He's a tennis fan. He was coming with his buddy. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to give him a credential and whatnot. Met him about five or six days ago. Hit it off since then. He's watched every one of my matches. I've watched him a million times. Kind of cool to have him in my corner."

(Here's an online story by Greg Couch, a friend of mine who is in Australia, about Isner's match and Smith's presence there).

Smith isn't the highest-profile receiver in Australia watching tennis, either. Terrell Owens -- i.e. T.O. -- has been watching Andy Roddick's matches and others and Twittering about them regularly on his account.

Feel free to insert your own joke here about how these two wideouts have plenty of time on their hands while 4 teams are still battling it out in the championship games Sunday. But being a tennis guy myself, I think it's pretty cool they've gone Down Under to watch some of the world's most underrated athletes.

Smitty is something of a Renaissance man in terms of sports, too -- he doesn't just like the basic ones. He's a soccer guy, too, having gotten interested in it while coaching one of his kids.