Wimbledon 2022 Day 10 (updated)

For me, the match of the day has already been played in the Women's  Invitational doubles between Schiavone/Pennetta and Hantuchova/Robson. This was main draw quality! No question. Schiavone played as well as I remember despite having cancer only a few years back but she is a Grand Slam winner at Roland Garros reaching number 4 in the world. Her signature backhand is always a thing of beauty! Lucky the player who has her as coach. At the moment it's Martic. Her doubles partner, Pennetta is also a Grand Slam winner having won the Australian Open, reached number 6 in the world, number 1 in doubles, and fitted in 3 kids, the last one born last year! They won their doubles match as one would expect. Pennetta served very well and hit some amazing downliners. But they complemented each other perfectly, yet both can do everything and are speedy around the court. I particular loved their team spirit! They weren't afraid to be physically demonstrative with each other!🤗 And their sense of fun made the court come alive. 

Back later....✍️ Enjoy 🎾👀

Rafa is still playing. Now in the fifth set.

All this talk of Wimbledon 'whites' that are whiter than white made me think that I should try to find out why the dress code is in place and why is it taken so seriously. I assumed for some strange reason that it had something to do with cricket. Don't ask why I had that idea. Unsurprisingly, it has nothing to do with cricket. But everything to do with the Victorian era. Apparently, propriety dictated that white is best because it doesn't show sweat marks. The second reason was that since tennis was a sport for wealthy men they could show this by wearing pristine clothes since pristine clothes were a sign of wealth. I'm not sure I'm any the wiser after learning all that. Still, there it is. I can't see the dress code changing any time soon whatever the reason. I guess I don't think about it that much because I've seen it all my life. Come Wimbledon, it's grass courts which I love and whites. However, there wasn't a dress code in place when I played my grass ITF tournaments. I could wear any colour. The only rule was the size of the logo on your tennis clothes and no logo on your tennis strings unless you have a racquet sponsor. 

Just to go back to sports clubs from my previous post. It's a great idea to have public tennis courts available so anyone can play and for free. However, these courts don't resemble surfaces that tournaments use which I know doesn't affect everyone but I'm thinking of those young people who might want to take up sport professionally. And many public tennis courts have uneven surfaces; they can be slippery in patches (so you could slip and injure yourself) and the net can be damaged or have a durable metal net which is so straight it's the wrong height in places. Such courts are a made of a rough tarmac which isn't relevant practice for playing on tournament courts, or even tennis club courts. So ideally young people need to use club facilities. But even those that are more accessible still charge for the use of their courts. This means that it's very difficult to gain enough court hours to play tournaments seriously. The other alternative is to join a club but that charges you quite a bit of money to belong to it. However, with it you are only allowed a certain amount of hours which again are not enough. Now all of this is understandable but the problem is that there needs to be some method (and maybe there is now in some clubs but I'm not aware of any) that allows a person, female or male, who is training for professional tournaments, to be given either free court time or greatly reduced fee court time. This will allow the tennis player enough hours of practice. This is especially needed when you are down as a professional tennis player playing tournaments. In addition, there is a need for clay courts to be available in tennis clubs because these are the courts you come across on the European ITF circuit the most often. And, of course, grass courts. Wimbledon is a grass court tournament after all!

I was lucky that I could eventually practice somewhere where it was less expensive. The down side was it was only hard outdoor and all my tournaments were clay or grass. I did practice a few times on clay but it cost money. So, for me, then, it cost in the region of £100 for 5 hours. That's a lot of money and 5 hours is nothing. I was used to a minimum of 2 hour sessions on court in a day. Anything less is unrealistic. So I topped up at another club which was much cheaper and used my father's workplace courts when he was needed for extra practice. This meant we could practice almost as long as we wanted. 

My mother made sure that we did everything incrementally and that I was always happy to play on and was happy with the practice. I loved our practice sessions. They spurred me on to want to be a professional tennis player. After each practice we'd sit down together and analyse what we had learned together and what we'd do next time. Just like the academic work it was all about team work! 

However, after a match, we didn't dissect it because she thought it counterproductive. It's not easy to strike a balance between constructive criticism and negative criticism. The latter could have a very detrimental impact on me because all tennis players are sensitive after a loss. So she decided to just point out positives. That way I only had a positive feeling about tournaments. Then after a couple of weeks we'd sit down and draw up a list of things we can do together to improve. What we practised was really down to me. That way I enjoyed practice, felt empowered and didn't feel pressured although I was used to pressure from dance and music. I feel strongly that although sport is high pressure nevertheless, it's good to keep a positive perspective on it and keep the enjoyment of it going. It also de-stresses the player which then means fewer injuries! All good!💪🙂

Rafa Nadal is through to the men's semi-final and is up against Kyrgios while Djokovic takes on Norrie. In the women's semi-final it's Jabeur against Maria, and Rybakina versus Halep. Should be good!