Last time I came here – I lost a pair of Oakleys, inexplicably, somewhere between the station and the queue. It was to watch Jamie Murray in his Singles Qualies, and it was still the days (final days I think) of the the Stella Artois Championships!
Now everything is all shiny and Aegon Blue!
Despite the cheerful predictions of my Met Office iPhone App, it was decidedly cool and breezy when I got there, and pretty soon I was resorting to my fleece!
It was a slow start by Istomin with Del Potro getting an early break. This, accompanied with a lot of hilarious commentary from the two old dears sat next to me who were convinced that Istomin was actually Gulbis!
Istomin got himself a break back after what looked to be a bit of a dubious line call. In these early stages Del Potro was slipping a bit and not really getting down to balls. As a result – Istomin was keeping the balls to Del Potro quite low, and managed to keep the deficit to a single break.
One of the features of Queen’s Club is that the stands are quite intimate in relation to the court, and I think it’s fair to say that perhaps not all of the tennis-goers are die hard fans (judging from the large amounts of takeaway Pimms). As such people tended to just get up and wander about and down to exit whenever they wanted. It wasn’t helped by a total lac k of understanding abour games, and non-movement by the stewards. The two guys were pretty, but also pretty ineffective, and they had to endure some very uppity complaining from people who had been queuing to get in for most of the first set. Discussions were continuing apace, and one of the pretty stewards, a foppy haired guy called Ludo, was getting it in the neck from someone who looked a lot like Nigel Havers! Then again, if you are going to be named after a board game, I guess you would be used to some stick! (I know – it’s short for Ludowig… work with me here, people!)
Del Potro came out and served for the set and the momentum stayed with him as again, he took an early break and actually seemed to be finding his grass legs. Then a slide really seemed to tweak his hamstring while 3-1 up. Istomin again kept things to a single break and Del Potro was moving gingerly back to his chair and had the trainer out.
It obviously helped, as he was moving a lot better and managed to break to go up 5-2, and subsequently served out for the set – so a good start but initial worries with that hamstring.
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