by 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!
