1) Verified that the park and ride was indeed in the same place it has been for the last few years!!! Cue driving around with my mother bleating that she couldn't see the helpful signs ... Until of course we suddenly could!!!
2) Installing the iPhone App at hone instead of choosing to do it on a bouncing bus!!! Where did that 3G signal go... I mean come, this is London people!!!
3) Instead of going on my instinct, I asked the stewards of supreme bumptiousness where the Returns tickets gate was ... Next time go with your gut instinct of Gate 4!!!
Next stop lunch and, joy and rapture - the luxury of Scampi and chips! Mind you at a luxury price too!!!
Quick stop off to grab a proggy and visit the throne room and off to the tickets!!!
Very nice seats indeed and after a weekend of angst on the am.com, I decided to ask at the box office what was the deal:
1) returns are set seats - no need to queue.
2) e-tickets are set seats - no need to queue
Only benefit if queueing early is if you are joining the main queue, or if you have tickets but want to snaffle a seat on an undeserved court before play starts in the bigger courts. It really just confirmed what a lot of us who have done things regularly knew… but hey ho!
MoLay out to a round of applause, which he took with his beaming smile.
After the obligatory clapping for the ballboys and ballgirls and the linesjudges, there was warm applause from the rapidly filling court for the defending champion. I’d felt slightly cheated to see Federer the year when Rafa had issues with his knees, so this felt like it put that right!
However, that’s about all that went right, at the beginning – Rafa had a sticky hold on his service game. Russell was fighting very hard from the outset, moving all about the court and some very good play at the net. This could prove to be quite a test for him today.
Things continued with serve, in particular some big serving from Russell. Nadal was beginning to settle down a little.
Russell was impressing everyone (except maybe the Rafa fans behind us) with his movement over the court, and a DF from Rafa gave the break to Russell, who found himself serving at 4-2.
Nadal dug in deep and broke back, as the wind started to pick up on Centre court.
As often befalls courageous fighters in first round matches, drawn against the top tier, Russell found himself with yips on his serve allowing Nadal to take the lead. A hold to love secured the first set for the defending champion.
Russell’s woes continued in the second set with some lacklustre play to get broken at the start of the first game. Nadal stayed a break ahead, and we were treated to some amazing rallies, including a couple of full stretch dives, first to the right and then to the left by Russell, leaving him prone on the deck both times, and leaping up to try and get the ball back; it was almost too cruel that he netted the ball on game point.
There was some hope for Russell as he managed to get the better of Nadal at 1-4 and got a break, but the second set was a bit of a foregone conclusion.
Again Russell found himself broken at the start of the third set and this was now beginning to look like a routine march for Nadal. We decided to leave at that point to get something to eat.
It was strange but it didn’t really seem as busy this year. And then of course Centre Court tipped out after Rafa won!
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