by 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.
