Rafateers do Roma ... giorno 6

Good evening all lovely Rafateers!!!! Its the Romateers from Roma just signing in ....

Firstly ... apologies for how this post might read as I am full of beer, red wine and limoncello ... Clare made me.

I can't believe this day. Amazing. OK ... to start from the beginning again.

We arrived early at the stadium and took up our position at the practice court in order to wait it out for Rafa. Clare decided to go shopping, and Rafan said that she "was going to the toilet".

Now then. When I "go to the toilet", I actually mean that I am "going to the toilet". However, "going to the toilet" in Rafanland, means sneaking off to the players' entrance instead of "going" to said "toilet" and ooooh ... just accidently bumping into Rafa as he arrived and getting YET ANOTHER Rafa autograph.

So she comes bounding back to say that actually, she is yet to "go to the toilet", but hey, look what I got instead!!

By the way ... 4 hours later, she had still to "go to the toilet".

Anyhow, there was no action to be had at the practice court, so we headed off to take our places for the first semi. When we arrived, we all legitimately "went to the toilet", and funny old thing, there were no players' autographs to be had ...

Sorry for glancing over the Nando and Daveed match, but time is running out for this post.

So for the main event ...


Thank God that Rafa broke in the first game of the first set because where on earth did this guy's tennis come from? We were all biting our lips, our arms off and all our nails, but Rafa was out of it for most of the second.

And so to the third. As is usual, we held our breath and I said 3 Hail Marys every time he served, but then ... in the middle of the third set came this shout from the crowd ...

COME ON RAFA!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

You guessed it ... Rafan.

And it was the kick up the @ss he needed. Noh?


All those break points ... all of them saved. And then ... OMG ... 5-4 break points and Rafa did it!!!!

To say we screamed the place down is an understatement. I cannot believe how lucky we are to be here, to have "met" Rafa, to have "gone to the toilet" and here he is in the final and we are all going to be there to see it.

We continue to live the dream Rafateers, and are loving every minute of it.

Hopefully I will have the where-with-all to write something better tomorrow, and hopefully we WILL actually get to see Rafa bite a trophy.

But above it all ....

DON'T WORRY ... HE IS NADAL !!!!!!!!!!