by Twenty years ago I’d have just about watched televised coverage of two flies crawling up a wall, but in recent years I’ve gone off most sports. The dominance of money, and changes to society, have made the whole experience of watching sport less interesting to me. Who wins hardly matters. But as Wimbledon is in full swing and England have made the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time since I was ten, now is a bit of an exception.
Yesterday, while battling an intense headache caused by my right sinuses, I watched Simona Halep – French Open champion, let’s not forget – lose in freakish fashion to Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan. She led 5-2 in the third set, but after Hsieh had held authoritatively in the next game, the remaining four could all have gone either way. But they all went Hsieh’s way, including at 5-4 when Simona had a match point. Hsieh was one hell of a tricky customer, playing two-handed on both sides. She was a far cry from the kind of ball-basher Simona is more accustomed to. Incredibly, nine of the top ten women’s seeds are out of the tournament. Serena Williams is still there, and so are Kerber and Ostapenko.
From the tennis I switched over just in time to see England take the lead against Sweden, and they ran out comfortable winners. England’s campaign has already been quite something. Suddenly there’s a sense of real optimism: “It’s coming home!” In the bread shop today I met an American who has a Romanian wife. As soon as he realised I was English he mentioned the football. I talked to Mum yesterday about the heat wave they’re experiencing in England, as their team progress through the rounds in Russia. She said that should they win the World Cup, the summer will become the stuff of legends. “Do you remember the Summer of ’18?” Mum and Dad will be back in New Zealand by the time the final kicks off.)
Today has been a day of sport-free bliss: a rest day at both Wimbledon and the World Cup. I spent most of the day creating a new board game for my younger students (well it’s not new at all: Dad came up with the basis for it circa 1993), reading a book by the frog pond, and sheltering from a storm.
Five lessons scheduled for tomorrow.
