Wimbledon 2010 Day 6: Nadal v Petzschner

We stayed put (and waved at some other friends we knew a couple of rows away) for the start of this match – Rafa breaking in the first game, and we looked knowingly at each other, and planned dinner at Wagamamas in Wimbers before hitting the tubes to go home – ‘cos Rafa was going to finish this quick, as was Andy… job done, right? Ummmm….



When Rafa was taken to deuce in his own service game we thought “ok – Petzschner is going to make it competitive” … OMG! And how. Granted – Rafa took the first on that single break and we toddled off for lunch … yep this time I tried THE BURGER… it’s HUGE. It’s like Cow-in-a-Bun. We thought about the nice ice-cream… we saw the queue, and we thought again!





We toddled back… and were just in time to see Petzschner take the 2nd set.



OK – we thought… perhaps slightly LATER dinner at Waga’s – maybe not the noodles – maybe just the starter dishes….

Petzschner was still giving as good as he got and indeed seemed to have much more of the initiative in the 3rd
Rafa took a MTO for what seemed to be his elbow and it’s fair to say Petzschner looked like the fresher of the two.
He took the next set on the TB… by now it was pointless trying to do anything on the internet now – I guessed that Twitter was trending away like it had done when Fed was in danger in the first match…









At the start of the 4th set Rafa took another MTO – this time for treatment on his knee. Those poor knees… given that me and my physio are trying to rearrange the mechanics on my knees – every time I watch anyone being treated on knees – mine twinge in sympathy. My knees are WITH YOU Rafa… (and much good may they do you!)



This was a long break – a bit unfortunate for Petzschner as he had had the momentum… and this worked well for Rafa because he came out and broke to go 3-1 up and the momentum shifted, with him taking the set.





At this point we decided to pop open the colder of the two mini bottles of M&S fizz and dug out our Froglets – not the warmest but went down rather well nonetheless…
There was a moment of controversy though – when Rafa was given a warning for a coaching violation! First time I’d seen him get a bit angry with the ump – and I can’t say I’ve ever noticed him engaging that much with his coaching team… sure Time Violations are not uncommon for him and he normally just accepts it and carries on doing his thing..
I saw later on the Wimbledon site that coaching was vehemently denied. Perhaps Cedric Mourier was feeling in need of a little attention!

Anyway – Rafa came through in another tense 5-setter.





So… the question was… could Andy come through again without dropping a set?