Second week pumping ...

Happy Rafa. We'll all take that. A few days ago I was absolutely cursing the Australian Open and damning Rafa's luck ... but he dug deep, has kept improving and now he's into the second week.

Vam-bloody-os.

Today's was another match that started in the twilight hours for me, so I pressed by Sky box to "record" and caught some zzzzz's. A funny thing is happening this AO though. In the Smyczek match, I was away in meetings and only came back to see Rafa win on match point.  Against Sela, I again had meetings and just came back to see him serve out for the match.  In the early hours of this morning, my precious little Cavalier - Rose - was snoring so loudly she woke me up. And as it had just gone 6 am, I thought I'd check on Rafa's match to see how he was doing ... only to see him serve it out for victory again.

I think I need to continue to make myself scarce next week when he's playing and choose an appropriate time to pop up again to ensure the win.  Haha ... *unjinx* and all that.

So I spent the afternoon leisurely watching the full match and enjoying and liking what I saw. I think Kevin Anderson's ATP picture makes him look a bit like Camilla Parker Bowles - and I'm not too sure which one of them I feel the most sorry for - and he certainly had his chances to break in that first set and it was pretty tight. But Rafa was playing pretty beautifully in sets two and three and it was a comfortable victory.

Big Berdych next. I'm not so sure Rafa is quite where he would like to be, but he can't be that far off ... can he? Berdych has troubled him here before, seems to be playing well and it's going to be tough. My only saving thought is that in spite of the big, heavy serve, Berdych still tries to play tennis ... so that will give Rafa a chance.

Anyhow, we should be grateful that he's there, seemingly very happy and doing well. Let's hope he can kick on to even greater things next week. Well done Rafa, keep it going ...