Le sigh ... bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!!
I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon, looking at grey skies with fine rain falling. The event that I'd planned to go to today is, in fact, happening next weekend not this, and I didn't have a back up plan. So I've been out and mooched a bit, started my latest craft project, touched up the paintwork of my bedroom skirting boards ... and watched some Rafa videos.
Raw. That's the word that sprung into my head as I watched a couple of these videos - you know the kind. The ones with blasting music and where a number of clips of Rafa playing great shots and celebrating wildly are put together. So it led me to look up a definition of the word "raw" and here's one that I found ...
"... devoid of elaboration or diminution or concealment; bare and pure."
That's Rafa's tennis, huh? What you see is what you get; nothing fancy, just sheer hard work and effort, but with oodles of skill. No frilly flouncing, no arrogant flicks. No staged trick shots, no pirouettes. And the dichotomy that is Rafa is that whilst his tennis is devoid of elaboration, how he feels it and celebrates it most certainly is not. And it's those displays of passion, the outpouring of feeling, the cries, the fist-pumps ... that's what makes him the package that is so great to watch on a tennis court. Raw.
I've barely watched a stroke of the US Open and couldn't tell you any results. I only tuned in yesterday because I happened to catch on to Feli's match and fancied watching a bit of eye candy. And as it's the weekend, I looked at the schedule today but thought, "Nah! There's not a single match I want to watch". Ten years ago I wasn't watching either because I couldn't bear to either see or hear Smugly march on unchallenged. And fast-forward on ten years and yet nothing has changed. And the fawning and expectation is worse ... not Betterer.
You see, I've loved this game for around 40 years now. And my interest was held with it because there was always someone I wanted to watch play it. I started off liking Jimmy Connors, and whilst I never did get enchanted by Borg, I totally adored his greatest rival, McEnroe. I enjoyed the tennis of Gerulitis, and then we had Edberg and Becker, and cheering on whoever played against Lendl. Sampras won the US Open young, and then we had Agassi, and that great rivalry commenced. Agassi's comeback story had me enthralled and I even cheered Sampras on when he became the Greatest Of All Time at Wimbledon. But the turn of the 21st century brought us serve tennis, and the slowing down of Wimbledon which served Federer so well. Don't ever let that fact evade you readers; no-one benefited from slower Wimbledon courts more than Smugly. And the dawn of that era brought the first of his Slam titles ... and me rushing for the "OFF" button.
And here I am again not watching a great tournament because there simply isn't anybody playing in it that I like to watch. Because I like my tennis raw.
There are things that I'm not missing though. I'm not missing the stressing and I'm not missing the obsessing. And in a funny sort of way this latest injury period once again has helped me to realise that there is a life outside of tennis matches and life will go on when "that" day comes. And I kind of met yet another enforced absence from the tour with a roll of my eyes this time; like it's expected, like it's par for the course when you follow Rafa. I also don't miss being angry about it all the time. Being angry about what is written about Rafa, being angry at abject and poor commentating of his matches. Being angry at the joy in commies' voices if Rafa is having one or two difficulties in matches or if he faces defeat. I remember writing an angry post one night after Rafa played [the next big thing that has never come to pass] Janowicz in Paris last year. When you couldn't take the glee out of the commentator's voice because he was being blasted off the court in the first set ... until Rafa came to take it and the match. And I don't miss the feeling that you'd think 2013 never happened ... perhaps the greatest season of Rafa's entire career, yet he barely even got acknowledged as being #No. 1 because of it. That he'd reached all of those finals, won all of those trophies, won 2 Slams ... whilst the ITF awarded their World Champion title to Djokovic, the ATP continued with it's love-fest and worship of Federer and this country thought nothing else happened in tennis outside of having a British winner at Wimbledon. No, I don't miss that. Any of it.
But coming across a couple of fan videos posted on YouTube today reminded me of what I am missing. That amazing, passionate, raw tennis. There are many highlights of Rafa's career that I hold up there as personal favourites. That incredible first Wimbledon title, the first hardcourt Slam in Australia. The total demolition of Federer in Paris in 2008. And right up with them I have Rafa's US hardcourt triumphs of 2013. On courts where he's not supposed to win, on courts where he'll "never" be Champion. But on courts where I think Rafa played some of the most stunning, aggressive and attacking tennis of his entire career. It was awesome. And that's what I'm missing from this year's championships.
We don't know what sort of Rafa will come back in late Autumn. Whether it will be the 2009 version or that of 2013. We may see another chapter of Rafa's story being written with elusive wins in Shanghai, Paris and the World Tour Finals. Or we may not. Years ago I always had a feeling that we perhaps wouldn't see Rafa beyond 28. I didn't know if his body would hold up or whether his soul would give up first and he'd go off to enjoy that life that has always been waiting for him in Mallorca. I now think that while ever he has a chance of playing for Spain in the 2016 Olympics, he'll keep on going. But I think that I have to be more reflective when supporting him. There is a life beyond watching Rafael Nadal. There probably will be more enforced periods out of the game, there will be defeats, there may even be [whisper it] a period when he's not the French Open champion. But when he's on ... he's on. And that's raw ...
