WIMBLEDON: Incroyable
Jun. 23rd, 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllDay three
I did not, could not, expect to return home at that hour and see Isner and Mahut approaching half a century of games each in the fifth set. I'd been disappointed, but understanding, last night about not being able to see the decisive set. I had a chance to look at the score a couple of times during the afternoon. Oh, how I choked in surprise at 28 all. And then I came home...
It was more like watching an endurance test for charity - who can stay up and dancing longest - than a sporting contest, and yet, even at the late stage where I came in, there was the court craft of going behind your opponent. There were tired shots, mainly from Isner, but there were genuine aces that neither would have returned in the first set. There will be a wealth of stats to pore over tomorrow. I rather thought that they should have been carried off the court in a stretcher or some such thing, by a troup of other players or supporters. Couldn't someone have carried their bags for them when they left? And what about the umpire, who was losing his voice! All three, of course, outlasted the electronic scoreboard. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of the crowd?
Whoever wins, well, they'll both make the record books, and their opponent will win the second round match (she typed confidently, and then thought about the improbability of what she had just witnessed and then shut up, abashed, although really, the amount of time they've been on court today and the cumulative effect of yesterday too will surely take the stuffing out of them.) I wanted Mahut to win, and yet Isner, even as he looked as if he could keel over at any moment, pulled out the serves, and apart from wanting it to end for both their sakes, I couldn't resent the competitiveness/unwillingness to give up.
What a Wimbledon it's been so far, proud Scot Andy Murray hasn't played in front of the Queen yet, and we had the first night under the roof and now this, where even the first-timer commentator's hyperbole (the light of the moon? Really??) did not even match the magnitude of what we were watching - a marathon? More! I remember this morning, when I was talking about the fastest ever serve at Wimbledon with bated breath (did Isner top that this afternoon? It would be easy for that statistic not to matter enough to be worth mentioning.) Yesterday, which seemed slightly dull, turned out to be set up.
In other news, Federer dropped a set (Nadal must be laughing, well, he would be if he too hadn't probably been gaping at the Match that Ate Court 18) and several top-flight women got through two sets easily (that isn't equal pay for equal work).
I did not, could not, expect to return home at that hour and see Isner and Mahut approaching half a century of games each in the fifth set. I'd been disappointed, but understanding, last night about not being able to see the decisive set. I had a chance to look at the score a couple of times during the afternoon. Oh, how I choked in surprise at 28 all. And then I came home...
It was more like watching an endurance test for charity - who can stay up and dancing longest - than a sporting contest, and yet, even at the late stage where I came in, there was the court craft of going behind your opponent. There were tired shots, mainly from Isner, but there were genuine aces that neither would have returned in the first set. There will be a wealth of stats to pore over tomorrow. I rather thought that they should have been carried off the court in a stretcher or some such thing, by a troup of other players or supporters. Couldn't someone have carried their bags for them when they left? And what about the umpire, who was losing his voice! All three, of course, outlasted the electronic scoreboard. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of the crowd?
Whoever wins, well, they'll both make the record books, and their opponent will win the second round match (she typed confidently, and then thought about the improbability of what she had just witnessed and then shut up, abashed, although really, the amount of time they've been on court today and the cumulative effect of yesterday too will surely take the stuffing out of them.) I wanted Mahut to win, and yet Isner, even as he looked as if he could keel over at any moment, pulled out the serves, and apart from wanting it to end for both their sakes, I couldn't resent the competitiveness/unwillingness to give up.
What a Wimbledon it's been so far, proud Scot Andy Murray hasn't played in front of the Queen yet, and we had the first night under the roof and now this, where even the first-timer commentator's hyperbole (the light of the moon? Really??) did not even match the magnitude of what we were watching - a marathon? More! I remember this morning, when I was talking about the fastest ever serve at Wimbledon with bated breath (did Isner top that this afternoon? It would be easy for that statistic not to matter enough to be worth mentioning.) Yesterday, which seemed slightly dull, turned out to be set up.
In other news, Federer dropped a set (Nadal must be laughing, well, he would be if he too hadn't probably been gaping at the Match that Ate Court 18) and several top-flight women got through two sets easily (that isn't equal pay for equal work).
