The world's a better place at SW19....

Returned from Wimbledon a few days ago feeling more enthusiastic than i have ever been about this slam. Just one visit for a tennis geek is enough to make it feel like home.

Standing amongst thousands and thousands of enthusiasts, seeing top players in every direction you look, ice creams and strawberries (no matter how overrated they are) and fresh green lawn courts on a bright summers day just wreaks of the thrill of the tennis season.

The trip to Laandan was indeed three days of total tennis intoxication, which Mike aptly called a 'propa tennis getaway this' when i rolled up at his house with tennis racquet and all. Living and breathing of the stuff, from our evening game to the mornings absorption of casual match chit chat while queuing. We rolled our eyes at the Murray articles every day, and spent the rest on courts and walking around the grounds. If that wasn't enough, after a short break of tube journeys home from Southfields station, we hit the t.v. to catch 'Today at Wimbledon' before bed. It was awesome!

Nothing matters at Wimbledon except the tennis. How wonderfully uplifting. The world is a better place temporarily.

I had always thought that getting into Wimbledon was almost impossible without putting yourself through great hardship, but Mike and i found that you can get there for 7.30am in the morning and still get guaranteed entry with a grounds pass by 10 am. Obviously this means a 2 hour long wait, but it is not a shuffling queue because they let you through in batches supposedly, so we only had to 'move' in the queue once. The rest of the time we sat on the grass outside in the sunshine, listening to our ipods and discussing players and matches. They apparently reserve 6000 grounds tickets, but one day we were 6135 and still got in just fine. (it is unwise to leave it too late however).

The trip was very much a success considering we were not really uber prepared or anything and kind of gave up on checking schedules of play for the next day (it is more fun when it is a surprise!). We saw loads of amazing players- Lleyton Hewitt, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gilles Simon, James Blake, Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero (mike said he saw Andy Murray and David Ferrer walk by), Santorro, Jamie Murray play doubles (he was a bit shit), Jelena Jankovic from a distance, Fernando Gonzalez (total joker, Thiago Alves, Amelie Mauresmo, Kuztensova (french open champ 09... My trip is in digital format here on vimeo

A few very handy tips i picked up on a first visit to Wimby....

1. It is always worth having a nice stroll around the grounds before you do anything to get yourself acquainted with the courts and with the Championship. It's relaxing and very enjoyable. (Also extremely helpful if matches have been moved around to different courts and you want to get there quickly without having to ask around for directions) The place is huge and confusing in crowds, and it is a good idea to kinda know where you are going. We also brought a notebook to keep a mental check of all the good matches on so we had a rough plan of the day....

2. Always make sure you know which court you are cueing for when you don't have reserved seating. The queues can take AGES, since they don't let you on the stands till a game finishes so that the players are not disturbed. This means something up to a hours wait, and you don't want to find that you have actually been queuing for the wrong match/court. (this did happen to us, but luckily we only queued for about 30minutes before realising)

3. If you want to see good players on practise courts, GET ON THERE FROM 12 ONWARDS. About lunchtime all the best players come out to play, not much chance of seeing them past 2pm.

4. Keep your eyes peeled, players just walk past you all the time. This is not to get pictures/signings- they are busy people and probably have a lot of things to get one with, but sometimes they will be walking towards a practise court or a unused match court to warm up. (we saw andy roddick this way). So it is sometimes worth stalking them and seeing where they go.

5. Take food, everyone does and they all munch sandwiches during the matches. It is easier this way, because you won't really have time to actually buy food and sit and eat because the important thing is to get your ass to as many matches as possible and the queues for food are not worth it! It is also of course more expensive to buy on grounds.

6. Don't go overboard with sensible footwear, you can get by just fine in sandals, but try and make it flat. HOWEVER, don't ever wear those primary coloured plastic sandals that are all the craze now, selling at your nearest Topshop. Yea, they look good, but your feet will DIE. DIE!!

7. They do not accept card for grounds passes. Have some cash on you £20 for first week grounds passes...i think 40/50 for show courts..(though you will need to camp)

8. Always check out ticket resale to see if you can grab a £5 show court ticket. When we went, Andy Murray was playing the last match on centre and there was a massive 6 mile queue for tickets at ticket resale, so hardly anyone was queuing for court 1 and we got a ticket on there to see Fernando Gonzalez (awesome player beat Murray at French) within 10 minutes...

9. Don't expect to see top 5 players on your first visit. Expect to see top quality tennis and good players, but not the best. You may just be disappointed, but really, everyone who plays at Wimbledon is a delight to watch even if they are not Rafa and Roger. You will have a guaranteed awesome time if you love tennis anyway, and just go with the flow, because luck is all around at Wimbledon...

10. If you are going as a pair, take someone you can honestly really put up with, i was very lucky, but the last thing you need is to spend an inordinate amount of time with someone who makes you want to fucking kill yourself/ (or kill them). And probably best to take someone who knows as much or more tennis than you, as player spotting is 10x more efficient, and also the whole experience is better spent in the company of a tennis enthusiast who will not get bored and nag you for food in the middle of a match.

Well, that is all i can remember right now... but hopefully it should be pretty helpful, because none of this info is available via the website or otherwise.

I apologise for anyone who is actually following my blog posts and has noticed it hasn't been updated during these Championships too well. I suppose this is not a problem really, but i enjoy keeping it 'up to date'. I just have little time in my life for everything including tennis sometimes. US open will be better organised on here for sure, since it is my favourite championship.

I also thought i would articulate my disappointment that Gael Monfils was not playing at Wimby this yr because of a knee injury. All my best wishes go out to him,i hope he recovers soon enough for US open.

I fell of my bike just like i always used to

I realise these posts are slowly becoming a bit personal and self-centred (it's probably why the font size has become smaller and smaller), but i am too lazy to start a new blog to separate this junk from, well, the rest of the junk....So today i went on a bike ride with my bro. I think the last time i rode my bike was a good year ago. Last summer in fact, so no wonder it hadn't felt like summer properly, until i went for a ride today.

My brother had already asked my dad to take my bike out by the time i got back to the house after my Oxfam volunteering shift, and i was quite happy to hop right on still sporting the inappropriate dress i wore into town that day. It was wonderful. There was a nice cool breeze, and no cars and just my brother shouting 'i am the supersonic' (whatever that means) peddling like crazy miles ahead of me. 

He has finally learnt to ride his bike without any stabilisers, and can't get enough of being outdoors on the two wheels. Though i am 11 years older than him, i am still 'young' enough to be just a bigger kid to my brother, and i enjoy spending these precious moments with him, where i can cling onto that dwindling childhood euphoria before it really gets too late. 

Sometimes i wonder just how long i can go on like this, before we both outgrow each other. 

Probably the most fruitful thing that came out of this bike ride was when i fell over. I was in such a intense day dream, thinking about all the good times i had on my bike, that i lost track of where i was going and my front wheel skidded of a deep set pavement. I went crashing down, but luckily on the pavement side rather than the road side- and grazed my knees and left leg pretty bad.

To my brother's surprise i lay down laughing hysterically despite the sting down my legs, and i treasured how it felt. Its been such a long time since i've had this kind of fall that i embraced it, hoping that i will get another one sooner rather than later. 

It feels good to get hurt like this. It seems that there is nothing but emotional pain with every year added on and sometimes you just want it to hurt where you can see it and where you can heal it.

I will be taking my bike out again tomorrow, and i won't look back. 

Day 11/12/13 reflections: I'm slacking, it's inevitable, but i am always inspired

There are some things that i enjoy to such an indescribable degree that i will gladly allow it to consume my daily havoc of a life, despite the fact that i should know better...

So even if i could go back a couple of weeks and get the chance to start all over, working harder, planning better, focusing my concentration, sleeping at decent hours, i would fuck it up all over again on purpose. Because anything that i would have achieved by doing all those things, would mean nothing to me in comparison to being able to follow such an incredible French Open.

Of course i would feel differently when i get older, and no longer have this unrivalled frivolity to wile away my time looking up match statistics, discussing player tactics and giggling at post-match interviews at 1am in the morning with my friends before exams. But i'm here and this is now, and i just. don't. care.

Every now and then, as a fan, you see a game of tennis which reminds you why you love hearing that ball bounce, and why that sound seems to be able to go beyond all the boundaries of perception to capture your attention time and time again, no matter what else is at stake. The Del Potro vs Federer semi-final was one of those games, and even with my unsettled post-examination head, and only being able to catch the last 2 sets, i could just about let all my worries subside me and settle down to watch the magic that occurs with a ball, a racquet, a net and just blistering desire.

There are probably only two people that i could just about stand beating Federer. Those two are Nadal and Juan Martin Del Potro.

Standing at 6 ft 6inch, Del Potro plays like his life is literally on the line, never ever giving in, he's almost like Murray in some ways, in that he is like this machine that will return every shot hit at him, except a huge difference is that Del Potro with enough honing will be miles more talented....Obviously his height gives him a major advantage, which is a big factor to why his serving motion is just so so good, and unlike some of the bigger guys, Del Potro actually moves pretty smooth on court, and just batters the ball every time it touches his racquet. With all the speed and power he is capable of generating, his passing shots are close to lightening, and i've noticed he has a gentle 'touch' at the net, which is an area that he would benefit a lot from with more practise. I have found it interesting to note, that the guys these days left lingering near the last rounds are all absolutely huge!- re: Monfils! Sam (Given-much(too much)-attention-2008) Querrey! Mario Ancic! etc.. But specifically Monfils and Del Potro are two of the most dangerous, and i was more than prepared for having to see Roger ousted by the Argentinian.

As i said, i didn't watch the first few sets, so i'm not sure what gave Potro the lead, but from seeing the last 2 (and a 1/2) all i could really decipher, is that he worked his little socks off, because he looked as tired and worn out as one could get being Juan Martin Del Potro by the time i tuned in. Federer's game isn't really the sort to grind people down physically, but certainly mentally. Just a Roger on top form is enough to put a huge mental barrier on the best players, and for a tender age of 20 years (!) Del Potro is doing such a beautiful job, and has the sort of fighting spirit that most players never adopt in their entire professional playing career. I always think that there is a very marginal line between the top 10 players and every other player, and the line is bound mainly by unrivalled mental strength....

This was evident when Del Potro so casually hit to the Federer forehand. Ok, so it is both Roger's downfall as well as his lethal weapon, but either way, you can only be very brave or very stupid to hit to that side...Del Potro is certainly the former, because if he avoided it, like so many players do just feeding to the backhand, Roger will have no mercy, especially when he is feeling good about himself, which was clear today.

One can tell when Roger Federer is a little nervous, behind that sheen of serenity there are all sorts of weird and crazy things going on up there. Up there is where the racquet battering is going on, and the only signs we see of that is when he tugs at the top right hand side of his shirt/ the left part of his shirt by his navel more often, or places a strand of hair into his sweat band a unnecessary number of times. The high is sometimes his ever so rarely heard bursts of frustration muffled by the towel he brings so quick to his face to hide the anxiety...

Just none of that today, cool as a fucking cucumber. The shots he missed he took in his stride, and the shots that were just too good, were taken with the utmost respect for his opponent. But in reply, these days, Roger adopts his 'i'm gonna serve it out motherfucker' attitude after he loses a point that shats all over his parade.

Some people see Federer's attitude as arrogant, but what they don't realise is that it is in fact genius. Why waste you energy on showing emotion? When you can use this as added fuel to up your game.

Two sets to love down. Again.

*Swoon*

How did he do it?

The beautiful thing about the fine physical specimen that is Roger Federer, is that, no one can ever really answer this question. But there are a few things today:

1. The Drop Shot- sweeeeeeeettttt as hell! I don't think Federer has ever been hitting drop shots this good for a loong time, and on clay too!- perfect. Clay is a base-line game (well duh, re: Nadal...), and this is the most perfect shot to play to an opponent who is a good few metres away from the baseline like most of the time.....However, it still needs to be executed with perfection (Murray take note): Federer is such an elegant player that all of his shots are precise, relaxed and flowing. The drop shot, even though it's basically a slicing action has to be just as relaxed and flowing to be good, pretty much. So it's no wonder Roger can do these so well. The backspin on the ball (can't remember which set/ game ><) was so good on one of the points, when Roger hit it as a inside-out forehand. The ball stopped in mid air and just dropped dead in it's tracks.

2. The inside-out forehand- Genius weapon, masterful. When it's good it's really good, and one only needs to see Roger's body take that wondrous turn to his forehand side to know with no doubt that this is going to pierce through the air and onto the line with no chance of retrieval. It was whip-like today, and i don't think i ever saw a hint of a slip. If it stays like this for the final, he will have no problems..

I have to say though, that i was a little disappointed with the Monfils vs Federer quarter-finals because i really did expect it to be so much more exciting. I have a lot of love for Monfils's drive and passion encompassed within such a young heart, and his serving motion is just plain awesome! (even though it is apparently modelled on Roddick's, but whatever). Gael is THE coolest player on the tour it has to be said, and it was a tad bit of a shame seeing him practically giving the game to Federer- but i do hope his knee gets better soon enough, because i love watching Monfils and all his heart thumping action. It was nice to hear someone call 'Come on My Son' from the stands ('My son' is Monfils translated :D)

I really have no idea WHAT to expect for the finals, but it will undoubtedly be e p i c. I can only be glad that i have been born at a time and into a world where i can observe such inspiring people.

Fuck this was meant to just go in my diary entry tonight...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz