What can I say? After shaking the clay from his shoes, Rafa headed off to Stuttgart which when I first heard of this decision a while back, I did raise my eyebrows. And I'm convinced that had the French Open gone it's usual way, then more than likely he wouldn't have gone, but what a joy it turned out to be. A final and a trophy bite, what could be better?
And so as Rafa made his way to the Queens Club in London, "hopeful" was the word. But ...
One step forward, two steps back ...
The thing is, I'd got back onto that Rafa tournament merry-go-round. When it was first announced in March that he'd be returning to Queens I tried to get a ticket, but quelle surprise, they'd all sold out. Popular guy that Rafa - and with the added bonus that as he takes so long between points, there's plenty of time to go and dash out for a nice jug of Pimms. Boom, boom!
So I cursed myself for umming and aahing about whether to go or not which gave rise for all the tickets to go during my faffing, so when I read that some more had become available, I was in there. Queens tickets are really expensive, so I was only going to stretch to one, and this is when it starts with the merry-go-round - when to hop on? For most of Rafa's career and certainly when he's been at Queens before, he starts on a Wednesday. Considering Rafa's up and down form and the fact that apart from the crazy year in 2008 when he couldn't stop winning all summer, Rafa hasn't progressed very far at this tournament. So I thought my safest best would be Wednesday, and I handed over ninety-five new pounds to Aegon for the privilege. Yikes.
Can you imagine how I felt when on Monday, the Order of Play was announced and that Rafa would start his first match on Tuesday ...
It takes a thick skin and nerves of steel to be a Rafa fan generally anyway. What with the constant negative media focus from him bursting on the scene, to the utter foulness of fans on social networks, notwithstanding the odious way they treat you at tournaments, to the simple fact that you can't just switch on the television to quietly watch one of his matches before the bias and contemptuousness of the commentators literally makes your ears bleed - it's not easy. It's been a couple of years since I last saw Rafa play, and that was at the French Open. We bought tickets for the Monday and Tuesday on Chatrier to try and cover both bases as to when he might start his 1st round match. We travelled out on the Saturday, met other friends that afternoon and nervously waited for the OOP and prayed that he wouldn't be put on on the Sunday because of course, we didn't have a ticket and were nervous about the flurry should we need to get one. We were lucky, he wasn't. But then the stress starts again on Sunday because you're then left wondering, OK he's surely either going to start on Monday or Tuesday (this time praying it's not Wednesday), but will they put the Champion on Suzy Longlong -every possibility - and if so, how are we going to get tickets?? Stress, stress, stress and more bleedin' stress. But I ended up being lucky that year. Rafa played on Chatrier on the Monday leaving me able to sell my Tuesday ticket on-line because the FO has a great process for this and so I got to spend a lovely day in Paris rather than making my eyes bleed at the obnoxious sight of the Prince of Darkness.
What goes around, comes around.
So I wasn't entirely in the best of moods when I boarded the train to London last Tuesday - me being a "glass half empty" kinda gal anyway. And then when I thought I'd left my book at home so bought a new one at the station - only to find when I unzipped my bag that I'd brought my book all along - and then when I went to my handbag in order to find my glasses to read Twitter/Facebook/New Book, I found that I'd left my glasses at home resulting in me having to buy some of those magnifying reading ones from a well known high street chemist ... well, I was just GAAH!!! This trip was already costing me a fortune!
The Plan A for Tuesday afternoon was to dump my bag at the hotel, catch the train to Hampton Court and have a few hours of culture before heading back into town to meet my friends Rafandready and Womble (not their real names, obviously ;) for dinner. But true to form with the general malaise of the day, my train arrived in London an hour later than I thought it would (my bad assumption, nothing to do with Sir Richard Branson's lovely trains), but I decided I'd still try to get to Hampton Court but perhaps just do the gardens. I then promptly got on the wrong tube, headed back, changed, and got on the wrong tube again ... so I thought, sod it! Put Plan B in action ... but not really having a Plan B. On a whim I decided to visit this Victorian arcade I'd had a fancy to, finally arrived there via Google maps telling me where to go because I'd obviously gone in the wrong direction ... and was completely underwhelmed. This day was pants, and as I was starving by this stage but mindful that I was meeting my friends for dinner in 3 hours, I sat myself down and ordered a chicken sandwich.
The thing is ... nobody speaks English in London. Or to clarify, nobody in the service industry speaks English as a first language, so I was left with this girl trying to explain that something was more expensive and that it came with these things, but I just cut through it and said, "I can have a chicken sandwich though, can I?" and she said "yes". Chicken pieces on a thick ciabatta with a mountain of chips and salad then found it's way to my table. And with a small beer, the "chicken sandwich" lunch cost me £16 bloody pounds. #thud
It was whilst I was waiting for he mahoosive chicken sandwich that I made the first, tentative steps of finding out how Rafa's match was going, and was a bit shocked and a tad nervous to see that he'd lost the first set. You see the thing is, I may have headed down to London berating my lot and convinced there was no chance I would see him, but because the third round matches would be played on Wednesday and Thursday, I clung on to the very faint hope that from somewhere the Fates would be on my side and that Rafa would be scheduled to be play on Wednesday. Never in my wildest dreams did I factor in that he might be beaten and not there to play it anyway!!
So when I next flicked onto the internet to see that Rafa had levelled the match in a tie-breaker, my first thought was "phew" and I carried on about my way. When I next dared to look, I could see he had a break and that calmed me somewhat. All matters had resumed to normal. But when I approached St Paul's cathedral, sat down for a little rest in its gardens and took out my phone to see that ... RAFA HAD LOST!! ... well, I just couldn't believe it.
In a daze, I walked towards the Millennium Bridge and for two pins, I could have chucked myself off it. That or the annoying bunch of French schoolchildren that were getting in my way. I couldn't believe it, this really was it. No more hanging on to a hope that I'd get lucky with the scheduling ... Rafa was out. I really, truly wouldn't see him ... I could have cried.
So with a heavy heart I set off to meet my friends at Earl's Court tube station. Rafan arrived first, flush with disappointment for me, but what to say? However, she then came up with her brainwave. As Rafa was playing doubles with Marc! that day and they still hadn't started to play and we were only one tube stop away from Queens, she suggested that we head on over to see if we could get a return ticket and catch a bit of doubles. When Womble arrived, she was up for it, so in for a penny, in for a pound, we set off for the tube ... promptly got on the wrong one, headed beyond where we wanted to be and had to head straight back to head back out again. Have I said GAAH!!
When we finally got to Queens, we were greeted with one ENORMOUS queue. But of course being British, we quietly joined the back of it without a question being asked. It turned out that the queue was so big because it was made up of locals, who were obviously granted free entry to the Club from early evening to make up for the disruption caused to them during the tournament. But we didn't know, we just queued ... It did give the opportunity to talk though about the perils of booking for tournaments - plenty of you will know them well. We've had to accept this year that nothing now with Rafa can be certain and he's had some "strange" results, but he's had defeats before that have caused disappointment. And then we have had all the injury breaks ... the sadness for him, the disappointment knowing that he's not going to be there at the tournament you're travelling to, the holding out in vein hope that he will be at the tournament you're travelling to. It's hard. Womble came up with a stat that for all the tournaments she's had tickets for, she's seen Rafa about 25% of the time. That's a low stat.
But hey, we were getting towards the head of the queue and when we finally made it to the ticket office, we were told that we had to buy a ground ticket to get a pass into the club ... and then we would have to join another queue to see if we could buy a return. FFS!!! Rafa's match had already started by this stage, but we once again did the polite British thing and joined the queue for Court 1 returns ... which for some strange reason had grown particularly long. Wonder why!??! But we inched forward and inched forward and then got to the head of it. "Two tickets for Court 1" a steward said, waving them in the air. Yesss!! Womble told us to go ahead and before we'd even made our way to the court she had one too.
We were IN!! *happydance*
So we made our way to enter the court, and it was via a gangway that was under the stand by the side of the court. We had to wait to enter because the players were playing out the last game of the first set. Then it was over, first set to Team Cuteness. Yey!! But hang on ... wait a minute ... TEAM CUTENESS WERE LEAVING THE COURT AND COMING STRAIGHT FOR US!!
It's then all over in flash. Marc! passed first, and whilst you're catching your breath ... Rafa's there. Right in front of you. He turned to look at me and with the raising of the left eyebrow and a quizzical look on his face he said, "Wooffs?? Hey Wooffs ... if the ATP or ITF provide a response to your letter on time between points, be sure to tell Benito, won't you??"
OK ... I made that last bit up. ;)
But no seriously, he's there. He's by you, right in front of you ... and you try to take it all in because once again you're surprised at how tall he is. He's 6'1", but he seems so tall. And he's actually so incredibly slim, that's what gets me every time. And his skin ... oh boy, it's amazing. Since I posted said letter to the ATP/ITF, I've had quite a number of - shall we call them "visitors" - to this site, who have all had a right laugh about the "caramel skin" comment in About. But it is ... I've never seen a human being with skin like it. Of course I stood there like a gibbering idiot saying nothing and doing nothing, but at least Rafan had it within her to say "Good luck, Rafa" whilst patting his arm ... and he said "Thank you" to her. Oh Lord ... we were agog!!!
Of course we didn't have the damn foresight to stay put for when they came back to return to the court, this time having some time to have prepared ourselves. No instead, we headed off to take our seats. Doh! I can't tell you anything about the second set I saw, it all passed in a blur. I was probably too bothered about taking photographs to take anything in, and I barely saw any of the play. What always gets me about Rafa playing on grass though is the sounds. The sound of his footwork, the sound of the ball being thwacked. It's amazing. I think the second set took about 30 minutes and before you know it, it was over. We left the court to meet up with other friends and fellow Rafa fans, I think partly in hope that we might see him leave, but only to be told he'd already left. We'd witnessed those Party Pants and now the last dance had been called.
The thing is, this is the good part of the merry-go-round ... you don't know when you're going get on, you don't know when you're going to get off, but you're going to meet some great people as you take your turn on the ride. It was lovely to see the VB girls again, to meet friends from social media for the first time such as LizzieBee and Trish, and especially to meet aRNi, who has been such a great supporter of this blog for a number of years now and she's always sweet about my dog Rose ... which always endears. :) She'd also very kindly made something for me - how lovely is that?? I love the camaraderie and the shared emotion. It doesn't make up for the results or withdrawals, but it most certainly helps. Love it.
So I did catch myself a bit of Rafa after all. The next dilemma to face was whether to go to Queens on Wednesday or have myself a day in London town. The merry-go-round again. Rafa wasn't due to play doubles again till Thursday and so I had to weigh up the permutations. He could very well have turned to Marc! that evening and suggested they withdraw because of having a good week at Stuttgart, a singles match and a doubles match and therefore he was in need of some R and R back home before coming back for Wimbledon. He could very well have stayed on to get more practice and see if they won the doubles. Ifs, buts and maybes ... who knows? You take your chance and it's either going to go one way or the other.
I decided not to go to Queens. I had no idea if he would show up or what time he would show up if he did. If he didn't show up, then I wouldn't have had much of the day left to go and amuse myself with other things that London has to offer. If he did show up, great, but I'd still have had so many hours to kill before being able to take my train to head on back up North. So I took that trip to Hampton Court and had an amazing day there. Rafa's practice sessions that week had been a bit difficult for his fans. He'd been on courts which were a court away from where people can stand to watch or else you were subjected to seeing him through squashed openings between the conifers that grow there. Not comfortable and not easy. Of course on the day that I decided I wouldn't try for practice, he turned up at 1pm on a court that contained seats where my friends had a front row, comfortable view and he hit the ball for 2 hours. That bloody merry-go-round.
So that's it. My experience of Rafa for another year. It's not put me off trying to see him again, but it's perhaps put me off from trying to see him in the UK. I shake my head sometimes at the things we put ourselves through and I really do swear ... never, ever, evah again!!
