Ok, so we’ve established that I don’t watch tennis on tv. Other than Wimbledon, which is sacred. Yet I have been known to ‘catch’ the odd glimpse of a final. If its a big one. And not only for Emma Raducanu. Which is why Sunday just caught me by surprise. Because I knew it was on. So, whilst having my pre-tennis (mine, not Rafa’s) porridge (Rafa can get his own) I just checked and yes, in that God-forsaken, 3rd world land down under, it was in fact 10 at night and it was 3-2 in the first set. At which point, I didn’t really care. Wasn’t even aware who my favourite Spaniard was playing.

I returned from tennis which, quite frankly, was of a completely different class to any blue-surfaced Aussie stuff being simultaneously played out. Possibly not quite such a good class, but possibly BETTER!! It was 2 hours since I last checked and now Rafa was 2 sets down and, although limping a bit, was battling for the third. Against Daniel Medvedev, I then learned. He’s tall, exceptionally skinny in a very non-athletic way, not very pretty and unforgivably Russian.

Rafa was limping because he’d had an operation on his foot 6 weeks before the tournament and had been ‘unlikely to play’. But he did. And got to the final. And by the time I was getting lunch ready (yeah, MEN can do that too, ya know?), he was limping towards a very close 4th set win, setting up a real finale going to the 5th. Which was simply awesome. As had been the entire match (the bits I’d seen). Incredible tennis by two masters who played the unplayable and fought for every single shot. It was so exciting I went and ate lunch.

Then came back right at the very end for the coup de gras and Rafa Nadal became the ‘most successful men’s player everrrrrrr’ by making that match his 21st Grand Slam win. Russia had been defeated (oh, if ever we needed a metaphor, that was it) and Rafa could limp off back to his physio, where he rightly belongs.

It was simply the best, longest, most hard-fought match I’ve ever (part-)watched. Five and a half hours of intense combat, so riveting it had me watching for minutes at a time.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx