Tennis

Wimbledon is over. Yippee!

Yesterday was a difficult day because I had five lessons and was battling sinus pain that robbed me of a few hours’ sleep the night before. Today was much more comfortable. In the morning though I had my first lesson (which isn’t the right word at all) with yet another little ‘un: a boy who turns seven next month. If I’m not careful I’ll ending up being half teacher, half babysitter. When I arrived at his palatial abode, I realised his mum and I hadn’t discussed the duration of our session. I suggested an hour. He’s only little, after all. I’d prefer longer. Yes, you just want him out of your hair, don’t you? His mum was pleasant, though. She introduced me to Simona, their cleaner. Good name to have right now, I said. We talked briefly about the tennis, and what a great ambassador her namesake is both for the sport and for the country. Then I met the kid, who showed me all his toys in the living room which had a six-metre-high ceiling, followed by just as many toys in his upstairs bedroom. Endless cars, Transformers, cuddly animals, games, jigsaws, and so much Lego. The Lego was stored in Lego-brick-shaped boxes of various colours, and there were enough of those boxes to warrant one super-duper box. We spoke 90% Romanian. He knew a few words for animals, colours and numbers up to ten. His mum wants me to come back more than once a week. Today I also got my hair cut for the first time since January. It was pretty much shoulder-length when I went in.

Yes, the tennis. You can win a grand slam in glorious, dominating fashion as Simona Halep did, or you can win it like Novak Djokovic did. They all count the same. That men’s final was a crazy match, and not necessarily in a good way. Yes, it was dramatic as hell and will live long in the memory, but it contained very long, very flat periods. Djokovic was well below his best for almost the entire match. Federer played to a higher standard, but his form deserted him at crucial moments: the three tie-breaks, the two match points on his own serve at 8-7 in the fifth, and various break point opportunities such as the ones he fashioned at 11-11 in the decider. That fifth set was something special. It was extremely tense. But when the newfangled tie-break rolled around, it was as if someone had pricked a balloon. Djokovic won the shoot-out comfortably in an ending I found anticlimactic. The crowd were firmly in the Federer camp, and the stunned silence when he missed those match points was something else. Some people would probably rate Sunday’s final as one of the all-time great men’s matches, but I wouldn’t put in the same league as either the 2008 Wimbledon final or the 2012 Australian Open final. In fact, based on quality of play alone, Friday’s semi-final between Federer and Nadal was miles ahead of the final.

It’s quite funny, really, that 253 singles matches came and went without requiring an emergency tie-break, only for it to be needed in the very last match. Honestly I don’t see the need for it in the final. There’s no “next match” for the winner to play. Just let them play it out.

At least a tie-break at the end of a deciding set is a legitimate way of determining a winner of a tennis match. The New Zealand cricket team and their supporters, on the other hand, must still be licking their wounds after an extremely unfortunate loss to England in Sunday’s fantastic World Cup final. (It reached its extraordinary dénouement at the same time as the Wimbledon final did.) What a terrible rule, too, that was used to break the tie. Whoever drew up the rules probably (entirely reasonably) thought a tied 50-over match, followed by another tie in the so-called Super Over, was so unlikely that they could come up with whatever crazy rule they wanted, because it would never be needed. But most boundaries is ridiculously arbitrary. Either play a second Super Over (and a third, and so on, until there’s a clear winner) or dispense with Super Overs altogether and let them share the trophy.

In last night’s Skype lesson, my student read an article about cricket. Specifically, what is it about cricket that makes people want to watch it? The author then said that you could ask the same question of any sport. It’s inconsequential really; unless you bet on the game, watching your favourite player win or lose is unlikely to have any tangible affect on you or anyone else. (Last night my student asked me what “inconsequential” meant. I said, “It doesn’t matter,” and that momentarily confused him.) In my lessons I get a lot of people, at all ages and levels, to read texts or articles or pages from books. Sometimes I’ll read bits too, so they can listen to my pronunciation and intonation. Reading aloud isn’t an easy task for a non-native speaker; it’s hard to concentrate on saying the words properly while also trying to understand the meaning.

I did well last night not to be distracted by Federer and Nadal in the background. I like to think I have a professional attitude to my work. I take pride in it. It matters to me like, if I’m honest, no other job has before. It’s a pretty significant part of who I am.

By the time our lesson had finished, Nadal was teetering on the edge, having already faced a match point. Those final two games were thrilling, and Nadal ever so nearly barged his way back into contention. There were large parts of the match I didn’t see, but Federer dominated the longer baseline rallies in a way I hadn’t thought possible. And there were several long points on big points, such as when Federer was break point down at 3-1 in the third set, that he often won. He seemed that little bit sharper than his opponent, somehow. If Nadal had broken back for 5-5 in the fourth set, the match might have developed into a real classic. As it was, the better man won, and the statistic that jumped out at me was Federer’s 62% of points won on his second serve. Against Nadal, who is normally so hard to put away in a rally, that’s a huge number.

I recently listened to Tim Henman talk about Wimbledon – he’s on the committee of the All England Club. He talked about the dominance of the big three, which he astutely attributed to their ability to defend, to stay in points, which is an underrated skill. When he was in top form, Andy Murray’s defense was ridiculously good, too. I thought about Henman’s observations yesterday while watching the first semi between Djokovic and Bautista Agut. That Bautista boy could certainly defend. For the second set and half the third he matched Djokovic shot for shot. Then Djokovic broke to lead 4-2 but, in the next game with break point against him, came that point, all 45 strokes of it. They weren’t exactly hanging back on their shots, either. Djokovic won that ridiculous point, and from then on, Bautista Agut seemed to run out of gas. Had the point gone the other way, Djokovic would very likely still have won, but things might have got interesting.

I appreciated Henman’s comments on coaching during matches. He is unequivocally against any form of it, on court or from the stands, saying tennis is pure. One-on-one. It’s your job to figure out what to do. On your own. And the vast majority of people don’t want it either. Well said Tim.

In under two hours we’ve got Serena and Simona. Both players (neither of whom I expected to make the final) are in a rich vein of form. I’ve a horrible feeling Serena will batter her way to another Wimbledon title in roughly an hour, but I hope I’m wrong. Many tennis fans, I’m sure, are excited at the possibility of both Serena and Federer winning again, but for me the prospect looms rather darkly. And of course I live in Romania, so Hai Simona!

I went to that music festival on Sunday. Before I sat down I ordered a frigărui, which is basically a kebab. I thought it was damn good value at only 7 lei, but I didn’t read the sign properly. Entirely my fault. It was 7 lei per 100 grams, and my kebab weighed in at 300. For 21 lei it was nothing amazing. The Indonesians had just started getting into their stride when the rain came down. Nothing too bad at first, but after an hour or so a huge thunderstorm struck, and a steady but manageable drip became a deluge. One of the best things about where I live is the close proximity to just about everything, and I was able to run home before getting absolutely drenched.

I’ve been having two lessons a week with Octavian. Except last week, when he went with his family to a town in Croatia by the name of Pula. In Romanian, pula means “dick”. He thought this was pretty hilarious. At the end of each session, we (or rather Octavian – I take a back seat) have been playing a nineties adventure computer game called Monkey Island. It’s a very cleverly designed game: so much time and creativity must have gone into it. You could easily while away hours playing it.

We’re down to four in both the men’s and women’s. Simona Halep’s consistency told in the end against Zhang Shuai as she clawed her way out of a deep hole in the first set. Simona plays Elina Svitolina in the semi-finals very shortly. Barbora Strycova fully deserved her place in the semis against Serena Williams, who had a tough time against Alison Riske. (At 3-all in the final set, I thought Riske might pull off the upset, mainly because of Serena’s movement or lack of it.)

In yesterday’s men’s quarter-finals, I was most interested in the match that didn’t feature any of the big three. I didn’t really mind whether Roberto Bautista Agut or Guido Pella made it through, but I read that Bautista Agut’s mother died recently, and he’d reached the last 16 of grand slams many, many times previously without taking the next step or two, so I was happy he won. It was a good match. The other three matches all followed the same, rather predictable, pattern. Djokovic went down 4-3 with a break against Goffin but hardly dropped another game all match after that; Nadal only just scraped the first set 7-5 against Querrey (who is very strong on grass) but then only lost four more games; and Federer looked out of sorts to begin with and lost the opening set to Nishikori, but powered to a fairly comfortable four-set win. We’ve now got Federer against Nadal in a semi-final, eleven years on from perhaps the greatest match of all time. Who would have imagined they’d both still be such superpowers of the game?

I’ve just been on the phone to a lady who wants lessons for her six-year-old boy. I keep getting the little ‘uns at the moment. Yesterday I had my first session with a woman of about 25 who works with two of my other students in the Finance department at the meat processing company. Next week she’ll be bringing her friend.

The temperatures have got a two in front of them, not a three, and that makes life so much more comfortable.