300 not out ...

Aah ... wasn't it beautiful today at Monte Carlo? The sun was shining, you could hear the motor boats whirring, the azure Mediterranean was glinting ... le sigh.  I know Indian Wells looks totally fabulous, but is there a more beautiful court in the whole wide world than Court Central at the Monte Carlo Club?  Not for me.  And a little jewel in azure glistened today on that lovely court as well.

His physique is once again prime, like a middle-weight boxer.  Those cheekbones ... wow, you could ski off them.  Oh hang on a minute, you want to know what I thought about the match? Curse that fangirl within me.  *winks*

He played pretty damn well.  Had a little battle on his hands to play his way through one of his service games in the first set, took a total dip in concentration at 4-2 and serving in the second with 3 wayward shots hit just that bit long and a double fault.  But then Seppi just completely threw away his own serve leaving Rafa to then take the match on his own.  All in all though, whilst Seppi doesn't have those big, hard hit bombs that so many other zzzzzzzzzzzz journeymen have and his whole game is centred around playing from the back of the court which he clearly cannot match Rafa with ... I'm still kind of glad that Rafa has so far played half decent players.  I totally admit that through being at work I've only actually watched Rafa's matches far this tournament.  I mean, why would I subject myself to Smugly-Ashol for goodness sake, and as for the PoD ... who exactly has he played yet?  Never even heard of 'em!  LOL  I'm sure [journalist] Carole Bouchard will be able to tell us what absolute geniuses of the court they are and that the PoD's superlative play just blew them away.  And that the PoD will win this tournament, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome the French Open and Best Haircut of Year - he is the ITF No. 1 after all.  #yawn

But of course, Rafa faces a genuine tough match tomorrow against David Ferrer.  OK ... I barely even want to type what I'm about to say for fear of the jinx and Lordy Lord ... I can't help feeling that there's going to come a point from now and in Rafa's future career on clay where he's not going to make it to the weekend and yadda, yadda, yadda.  But may God strike me down and I curse myself with an infestation of a thousand cockroaches ... but my gut is telling me that Rafa is going to come through tomorrow.

I believe that David is playing well, but not that I've been watching.  That he's recovered from injury/loss of form/strike one of the above because again, as much as I like David as a person, his tennis leaves me cold ... so I don't write with any actual knowledge.  It's just that the clay and court at Monte Carlo seems to suit Rafa so well.  That today, as much as watching his forehand is akin to Prada revealing the new season's latest handbag, I was happy to see Rafa's backhand being really solid and in good use today.  He didn't hit winners from it, but he was solid and confident in it ... and that's what I like to see.  So I think he's going to get through.  Eeek!!

So let's go back to today being Rafa's 300th victory on clay.  On Sky Sports in the UK, they keep putting this table up with Guillermo Villas leading with tournament victories and some such thing ... I lose track, Sky Sports bore me to tears half the time.  And it seems that Peter Fleming said some controversial things about Bjorn Borg being the greatest and stuff.  Well, Fleming champions the time he comes from, but unlike so many of the commies on that station, he's pretty damn fair to Rafa and I like him.  I did hear him make the comment that regardless of what the statistics tell us, Vilas wasn't fit enough to lace Borg's shoes and if Vilas wasn't even the greatest of his own era, than regardless of whatever his statistics are, he cannot be spoken of in the same breath as Rafa and Borg.  And when you think about it, Rafa may have been to South America in his earlier career and of course he went there purposefully last year after his long injury lay out, but he still only has these 5 opportunities every season to rack up his own set of statistics, and that's playing against the very best of his own era.  Amazing really.

Anyhow ... I've no idea why I went off on that tangent as it's time for bed.  And I'll be on my knees saying 1,793 Hail Marys as the *anti-jinx* for what I said earlier.

Till tomorrow peeps ... let's hope we find each other #happeeeeeee  Eek!