frog princess

Why is tennis such a difficult fandom? I keep asking myself this. There's no actual reason to be tipped into despair just because Roger bloody Federer loses a tennis match yet I woke up this morning with epic sad. This is alongside an actual hangover from drinking many cocktails so perhaps that is magnifying my woe. Perhaps.

I didn't see any of the match because of the cocktail party and J&J's house, but they let me sneak away to watch the livescores now and then. On my own. Drunkenly. If there had been a secret film you'd have been able to see me watching through my fingers at the damn livescore box, whimpering. By all accounts it was a pretty thrilling match though and props to Novak for coming through it.

On the upside, a moment of pure amazingness is potentially almost on us. If Rafa wins the US Open today he achieves his career slam and I will probably cry tears of pure mooky happiness for him. And so will Roger!

(Roger says he's not going to watch. Yeah right.)

I just had the most amazing week camping at Wimbledon with buckle_berry and tarteaucitron.

We Queued to the max and learned even more about the arcane practises involved in successful queueing! We saw Rafa and Roger and Mandy and Sue from the Queue! We saw Feliciano Lopez in Wimbledon village. He has arms! And he buys groceries from the artisanal grocers there. Berry commented that he looks a lot more manly in real life and I agree.

We "met" Uncle Toni in the street. He smiled at us as we stood aside to let him pass on a narrow bit of pavement. He's a lot taller and slimmer than he looks on tv. We properly met Mohamed Lahyani! In what has to be the coolest moment of my life to date I told him: "I love your umpiring." He actually looked genuinely delighted. He said 'Bien sur!' when we asked for our pictures with him and posed with each of us. buckle_berry has those on her camera because mine decided to die right at that point. However Lars Graff just gave me a steely stare when I locked eyes with him in the tunnels under Centre Court.

We saw Roger practising on court 14, entirely by accident and good luck. It was at about 10.30am on the Monday. He looked very relaxed. The little court was full of onlookers but the atmosphere was hushed and reverent like we were in church. Berry said it made her feel weird, and I agree. The hushed reverence lasted until he stopped and began to sign things and then it turned into an absolute scrum. He signed for about five minutes and then he was whisked away through the crush by a squad of security guards. I noticed that one woman had a self published book of photos of her and Roger together that he'd signed. She was so happy that she cried. I honestly don't know what to think about that except that it makes me think how strange this whole circus is, really, on some levels.

Through our queueing exploits we got Centre Court tickets for both Monday and Thursday, so we saw two amazing, epic matches: Roger v Alejandro Falla during which we wanted to die right up until the point Roger finally won, and then Rafa v Robin Haase where we actually never properly believed Rafa was in danger of losing but it was still really exciting. Plus multiple shirt changes. Rafa has muscles in his back that normal people just don't have. We also saw Mandy bowing to the Queen! matildafilch met up with us on Thursday too, although we weren't ale to hang out as much as last year as she had seats right up at the top. Apparently there is still a pretty decent view from there though. And we saw Lars Graff eating a sausage! He gave me a wide berth though.

I might've developed a small obsession with umpires this week. Carlos Ramos was in action during Rafa's match, but he mostly seemed to be winking and smiling at a cute linesman while sneaking looks at Rafa while he changed his shirts. We saw umpiring HBIC Pascal Maria several times. Did you know that he can hold three tennis balls in each hand? Cedric Mourier walked past us on the street so we 'met' him too. I saw Erich Molina hanging out near a lift. He is pretty in real life.

Other tennis: JJ v Laura Robson, Feli's first round match, Stan v Istomin, Novak v Olivier Rochus, which was great. They closed Centre Court roof halfway through and played that really interesting documentary about how it was built, and the crowd got silly and did Mexican waves. We didn't see any of Jisner v Mahut as they played the LMOAT (longest match of all time) but I saw the adorable net hugs.

I have a ton of pics of everything! ( Wimbledon 2010 )

Rafa won, making history and breaking records everywhere and generally being wonderful. He's amazing. It was a funny old match though. I was torn between wanting them both to win, so I was really sorry for Rog at the end.

It was very clear they were both very keyed up about playing each other again, and that was very thrilling to see! The tennis was sometimes brilliant and sometimes really not brilliant at all. I haven't got a whole lot else to say about it at the moment, except that I love this comment from Rafa:

"At times we did play well but I think we know each other so much that we are only focusing on how to make each other play worse."

Roger sat firmly in his chair during Rafa's pre match routine. Rafa sneaked glances at him and didn't get up, twitching his towel over his knees. Roger just kept on sitting there-- I'm not even sure what he was doing. This sitting down stalemate went on for ages until I seriously thought the umpire would have to do more than politely clear his throat at them.

On the podium afterwards, Rafa told Roger: 'You're amazing.'

Ion Tiriac gave a very boring speech. The stage wasn't big enough for everyone crammed on it, so Rafa and Roger were crammed up on one side looking like awkward school kids in assembly, with Roger's left foot actually half hanging off the edge of the platform.

They both looked really pretty. They were awarded identical matching silver tea tray awards.

Rafa lay face down on the court and kissed it at the end of the match. I think this is one of my single favourite moments.

Roger missed the ball with his racquet on match point, about which I'm still having massive contact embarrassment.

The stadium sound people played 'Simply the Best' by Tina Turner for Rafa at the end. Oh, lol.

( Now, some pictures )

A moment of adorableness from the Shanghai Masters tennis:

( Rafa and a fan )

A little interview pre Shanghai, where Rafa says very firmly that it's always better to have Roger there.

So anyway, it was the US Open final last weekend, Roger vs Juan Martin Del Potro (from ARG). It was a great match, 5 sets of tussling! Roger didn't win it though, mostly because he forgot how to serve for almost all of the match and anyway Del Potro-- hugely tall, mumbling, sort of overly hairy round the facial area-- was too good. Rog was very serene at the ceremony, which was great to see. There was no drama, for once. I mean, Roger has won a lot. Like, A LOT. Two slams this year already and now he has kids, so he's got other things in his life. So I think five US Opens already seemed enough for him.

It was a momentous occasion - only two other people have won a slam since 2003 when Roger began winning them. When you think about it, that's a ridiculous statistic. I really thought Mandbot would have a chance this time, but the wheels fell of that in the fourth round. Del Potro snuffled damply during the ceremony. When asked afterwards what he might spend some of his £1.25m winnings on he said: "Probably some cheesecake for my birthday." Not even a cheesecake shaped like a sportscar!

Also! Roger was in a bad temper for most of the match-- probably because of that slightly annoying inability to serve at all-- and he swore at the umpire! Three times! I just keep watching the Youtube over and over. I never heard him swear before at all. It's like the best thing ever.



I'm going to Cornwall tomorrow so I'll miss the Davis Cup antics: Spain are playing Israel, UK are playing Poland, Switzerland are playing Italy.

Title: Rafa's Diary - day five & day six
Pairing: Fedalish
Warnings: worksafe
Rating: G

Day one Day two Day three Day four

( Day five – Friday )


( Day six - Saturday )

Thanks for all the positive comments on my etsy stuff yesterday, it gave me a much needed boost of confidence about it all.

In other news, am off to the dentist tomorrow as I have a painful tooth - one I paid a couple of hundred quid to have a root canal in. MASSIVE SIGH. I loathe the dentist. If anyone was mentally scarred by ever read any Herbert Van Thal Pan horror anthologies as a youngster, do you remember the one with the man who had a tentacle monster living in his gums? I reckon that was written by someone who had bad teeth. Dentists give me the fear.

tarteaucitron came to Reading on Friday. She is v awesome. <3 We hit up the Malmaison cocktail bar again and totally failed to restrain ourselves to just a "quick drink". After three each, we went back to mine, got bagels and cupcakes to eat and watched the last seven episodes of Supernatural season 4. It's no spoiler to say there was a lot of angst. A LOT. Spn is a fandom that I love to read in, and Tarte is good at the fic pimping so I'm enmeshed in a huge amnesia/psychiatric ward fic at the moment. Very satisfying.

I posted day two of Rafa's diary in the middle of the night. *shameface* It's here.

I stayed up late with buckle_berry, morebliss and emungere. We watched Feli losing to Dent (why Feli why??) and then the Mandy v Gulbis comedy tennis match. Honestly, it was the most hilarious thing I've seen for weeks. Gulbis is a complete mook - talented but his mind is clearly not on tennis, it's floating somewhere in space-- and then at the end Mandbot did a little pirouette and a split step.

( Here's the damning proof )

Roger is through to the second round, having beaten 18 year old Devin Britton. Britton had his eyes completely replaced by stars. From his post match interview, when asked about Roger's forehand:

Q. So you think you're going to have some bad dreams about that forehand?
DEVIN BRITTON: No, I'm going to have great dreams about it. It's so pretty, you know. Any dream about that would be good.

Rafa has said today he feels 100% fit going into the US Open! Excitement!

I have sort of been assuming that he'll be out by the semi finals at most, but now maybe I wonder if he has been downplaying his chances a little or a lot, being cautious. It is a Rafa-like thing to do, as Roger points out. I'd love Rafa to win it and get his career slam. I'd just be so happy for him.

""For me to have the title here doesn't change my career, but if I had the title here, finish the cycle, it would be unbelievable," Nadal said."

It would be unbelievable. Well, we shall see in a couple of weeks time. It all kicks off tomorrow. Yay the tennis!

Oh Rog, you enormous beautiful GOATiest waving dork <3333

They made him walk along a disturbingly rippled shimmery tunnel bearing the fruits of his labours! I bet Mirka really appreciated that imagery.

( Roger's table decoration is a glitter ball. No, it really is. )


There's a sweet interview with Roger on the BBC, here, where the interviewer asks why he didn't show more emotion when he won. Roger says that he felt bad for Andy, likening it to the way Rafa felt bad for him at the AO and last year's Wimbledon. It must be a very odd and difficult experience, winning in such a comprehensively upsetting way for your colleagues. But still easier than losing, obvs.

I know a lot of people think Roger was an arse yesterday in his on-court interview. It was somewhat wince-inducing but I think he was genuinely trying to empathise with Andy.

( net hugs and trophy ceremony )

buckle_berry is coming to sunny Reading tomorrow! I can't wait!

That's not all, we are going to camp out at Wimbers overnight to try and get tickets for Roger's match on Centre Court. I know, this is terminal insanity. The tent is airing in the garden at the moment. The plan is to hit Wimbledon by about 10pm tomorrow, which is the earliest we can make it because of buckle_berry's train. This might be early enough to be in line to get Centre Court tickets, but then again it might not be. But either way I think it's going to be pretty hilarious. Camping! For Roger! If all fails we will get grounds tickets and roam around inside. If anyone else is going on Monday and fancies a meet up, drop me a comment and maybe we can attempt to find each other in the throngs?

We tried booking through Ticketmaster, but Ticketmaster is the work of Satan and says no.

From various reports, Rafa was moving well today in his exhibition with Wawa, much better than yesterday. He still lost though - they won a set each and Rafa lost the resulting tiebreak. He's having a press conference at 7pm today to say whether or not he's playing Wimbers, and I suppose he'll also give us the latest news on the tendonitis.

Rafa's poor knees. They need kisses and possibly also special bows tying around them. :(

Yesterday, Uncle Toni strongly implied that Rafa wouldn't or shouldn't be playing - it was all a bit strange. This is really the first time Uncle Toni has given me the irrits, because I seriously don't think he should be joining in the speculation at this point.

ETA: he's not playing, and said it was the most difficult decision of his career. Sadness. Get better soon, Rafa.