We went to Queen’s yesterday.
Stan Wawrinka is the man of the moment, so the crowd were on his side.
There were so many aces being served in his match against 6ft 8 inch South African Kevin Anderson that we soon guessed the first set would go to a tie break.
The giant won the tie break.
In the second set occasional voices shouted, “C’mon Stan!”
There was quite a lot of “C’mon Stan!”
Then a wag behind us said, “C’mon, Tim!”
During the big-serving tie-break an exasperated posh voice from the club-house stand shouted, “Come on, Stan! You’re the French champion!”
Stan then served an ace to make the tie break 11-10.
But on the next point he completely mishit a routine forehand.
“Unbelievable!” said someone.
“Only human,” said another.
The tie break was now 11-11.
Soon after that Kevin Anderson won the match and we dashed downstairs for an ice cream.
Trouble was, Paris had taken a lot out of Stan.
He’s 30 and had battles against Federer and Tsonga, followed by a big battle to beat Djokovic in the final. It’s no wonder he looks a bit knackered.
Last time we were at Queen’s we saw Murray beat Del Potro and we were sitting high up on one side.
Yesterday we were behind the server, so our angle was more like watching it on TV.
Being there is a lot more fun.
The great thing about going to a tennis tournament is that you don’t have a commentator telling you what to think. And you don’t have a director choosing what you look at.
We saw two classy French players as well. Gilles Simon beat Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-4, 6-2 but Gasquet, a player with finesse, was out-powered by the giant Canadian Raonic.
I liked the style of Alex Dolgopolov but when it became clear that the Ukrainian was going to lose to Garcia-Lopez, we headed out into West Kensington and made our way to Barons Court tube station.
This afternoon I’ll go to the gym or watch Andy Murray beat Verdasco.
Andy has won Queen’s three times.