The Beautiful Occupation

AELTC

No, not librarianship, though I do find books beautiful, especially after looking at bookporn’s Flickr photo gallery. And yes I do know the Travis song I’ve used to title this blog is about the Iraq war, but it works and is surprisingly apt (all you can do is “stand there watching it happening”, there should’ve been an intervention, especially to save Isner who looked like he was about to drop, and someone should’ve called the United Nations about cruelty to tennis players). I’m now going to use and abuse this blog to talk about one of the great loves of my life, tennis. I have never been prouder to be a tennis fan after watching last night’s match between the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut and the American John Isner. Unluckily I had to come to it late, but I watched it until the end, which was about 21:30, when Mahut unwisely but understandably brought it to a halt due to poor light and Isner against all comprehension wanted to carry on. By the end he couldn’t even hold his towel and was carrying it in his mouth, he picked up a banana and then though it’d be too much effort to eat it and he looked delirious with exhaustion standing statuesque yet still serving impeccably and somehow returning the ball as well. It is certain that the winner will go no further in the competition as they will have been playing for 3 days, over 10 hours and run the equivalent of a marathon which takes months to recover from. I’m rooting for Mahut by the way as, and I’m going to come across as smug by saying this, I pointed him out as one to watch in 2007 when he got beaten in the final at Queen’s by Andy Roddick; he’s been injured since then so he couldn’t capitalise on that promise. As for John Isner, he won the warm-up event to this and did well at Queen’s. By the way, Mahut had to qualify for Wimbledon and has had to play two marathon five-setters before this and it is still only a first round match.

H. Blair

If you ever talk to anyone who truly follows tennis, you’ll find that they can be just as passionate about the beautiful game as football fans, and what’s more, they’re great advocates for the sport. As a comment from my previous blog post said, thank you LucyLike23, “Now, after reading your post, I want to watch tennis - though it is not usually my cup of tea.” So I’m now going to try and convert everyone.

I can’t remember when I fell in love with tennis, but it was doubtless due to Tim Henman and definitely Wimbledon. It was probably that year he almost got to the final, but because of that damn rain delay... least Goran Ivanisevic won that year. I love tennis because the match and the winner’s lead can hang by a thread; one net cord, one wrong line judgement, the weather, one literal slip, one mental slip... anything can affect the match. A match can turn as quick as you can click your fingers, that’s why you never want to leave it. Whereas with, football say, you can go and get a drink and not miss anything; the roar of the crowd or the commentators will alert you if anything’s happening.

I’ve been writing this blog post in my head ever since I woke up before 6am this morning; unfortunately I haven’t had time to write anything down so I’ve forgotten most of the assuredly great stuff I came up with. For once, hyperbole, superlatives and clichés can’t sum up that record-breaking historic match last night. It’s like watching Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson or Torvill and Dean (and John Inverdale was right; Mahut and Isner will be forever linked), you can’t believe what you’re seeing but it is really happening. It’s unprecedented, unbelievable and entirely unexpected (the first time, and this is the first time and the only time; we’ll never see the likes of this again). You just can’t believe your eyes or ears and to paraphrase Johnny Depp Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, “Not impossible, but improbable.” Everyone I talk to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. I’m not going to even try and describe the indescribable. In what other sport can you see players carrying on into practically total darkness (like the 2008 final), matches spanning three days (without rain delays) and a match go on for 10 hours? And it’s still going on! It could only be tennis and only at Wimbledon. Wimbledon has treated us to some awe-inspiring events over the last few years, and I truly mean awe-inspiring as it has left me in admiration of the players. First there was the Nadal and Federer final in 2008. I was on holiday at the time and I started watching it from the beginning in the afternoon and it was still going, obviously, late into the evening. Me and my entire family were having a meal out in a restaurant and I kept racing over to look at the TV screen in the bar. After a while, the staff just let me take my food and eat it there and after my family had finished, they came and joined me. Then there was last year’s final, which I mentioned in my previous post, I can’t think about it without tears coming to my eyes. Roddick was two sets and a break up, usually an unassailable lead, and he still lost.

Getty

If you’re in any doubt how historic, important and significant the Mahut and Isner match is, it will almost definitely change the rules of tennis, at least at Wimbledon if not the entire sport. For me, I don’t think they should change it, just as you shouldn’t change the rules due to one singular event; this will never happen again, it’s an anomaly and a beautiful one at that. McEnroe is wrong, they should finish the match where they started it, on one of the most outside of outside courts, court 18, and not Centre Court in front of the Queen. I've invented a new term; there's break point, game point, set point, match point and championship point, now there's save point (for when you hold serve). In this match, every time Isner or Mahut held serve, it felt like they'd won. Every time they took a few points off the other's serve it was momentous. Every time they got a break point it felt like a championship point; Mahut saved three match points as throughout the last set he was serving to stay in the match. The statistics are incredible as they have literally broken all the records in tennis, not just Wimbledon, apart from the ones for the quickest, obviously. The one that gets me is the last set, already, is longer than the longest match ever and it is 3 normal matches in one. Even the scoreboard couldn't keep up and gave up the ghost at 47 all; humanity beats technology yet again. As Federer said, perfectly as he seems to do in everything, it was all "too much."

Oh and we won some football match too, which was also amazing, but for entirely different reasons. Why, with all our world-class players who are some of the most famous in the world, do we still scrape through by the skin of our teeth, runners up to a country who calls it soccer? The USA deserved to come top by the way; they should’ve won the match they played against us. Least the cheating French are out of the World Cup. I loved it when James Corden replaced France with Ireland in his TV show line-up. Mahut could teach his countrymen a thing or two about national pride, sportsmanship and determination. Both Isner and Mahut could teach football players a thing or two actually, about stamina, teamwork and being a sportsman. That's why I love tennis for the drama, the game and most of all for the characters.

AELTC

The war of attrition starts again at 15:30, will you be watching?