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Fanatic Omes:

• Rafa has Rog’s back over his pullout. I’m with Raf/Rog on this one. But what do I know, I’m not organising an entire tournament, and I can’t imagine what it’s like as a tournament director to have this sort of spanner in the works and I feel sorry for them over there, but surely you’d have to have foresight about these things. And thus not pin your hopes on one player. What if Rog was actually injured? He has to look after himself. I think we forget what these athletes put themselves through day in day out. Especially the champions; poor lads and lassies.

• The Muzzard you don’t know but love. I’m increasingly becoming more and more of a Muzz fanatic and I kinda like it. I love how he is off court, and who am I kidding, on court as well. Murray matches just wouldn’t be the same without the self deprecation, grimacing, and yelling.  It’s not like he’s taken more of the Rafa space in my heart, it’s more like my heart has increased a few inches and Muzzle has parked in there.
 

• I'm sure you've all read this. Sigh. I wish we could live in a world full of rainbows and smiles.

• Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the world...

(Pic: thejamesbondbooks.com) 

So like, I went to Queens...

Fanatic Omes:

Queuing for long enough to make life-long friends and being treated like vermin at the entrance because for some reason, for about 2 and a half hours only residents to the area were allowed into the site aside,...I had a lovely time.

We arriv-ed at the tournament site, where they were kind enough to dangle the scores of the Rafa/Stepanek in front of our eyes whilst we were being held in the queue. 

With Rafa serving for the match I prayed that he would be a dear and take it to three. So you can imagine the joy when Rafa felt my cosmic synergy and kindly oblidged; so after hustlin’ we got to watch the last set. (I missed Rafa’s fall though.)

 

I also got to watch James Ward! ‘Twas was a lovely jubbly atmosphere despite the lack of people. And now the former no. 208 has only just gone and made it to the quarters. Vamos James!

 

Then came the crux of the evening: Rafa’s doubles play was halted due to poor light. And being a freak, I had the foresight to run to one of the court one exits to watch him come out. And then he did! Just can say: why can’t more guys look like Rafa? : (

Then it was home time. :’ (

So I’ll leave you with the inner monologue in my head for the five seconds I saw Rafs up close:

“Oh Rafa’s leaving the court, OMG OMG, let’s run to go see him up close!

Poor Rafa! I can’t imagine being mobbed like all the time. Not to mention people shoving camera phones in your face. I feel so bad. Swarms of people are just following him.

Proceeds to chase Rafa towards the locker room.

I miss Rafa. “

More photos after the jump break. 

Ward-ing off Opposition

Neutral Omes:

The story of Queens so far has been world no. 216 and Britain’s no. 2 James Ward’s victory over world no. 14 and 4^th seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka. The Brit closed out the victory in straight sets - 76 63, after winning a convincing tiebreak 73 and using the momentum to break early in the 2^nd set. Ward is currently being mentored by Argentinean mixed martial arts cage fighter, Diego Visotzky, who according to (a slightly frightened) Ward, enjoys putting his mentee in headlocks. The Brit now faces defending champion Sam Querrey and will certainly need all the fight he can muster.

Fanatic Omes:

Congrats to James Ward but doesn’t he want to go to the gym? I think all the Brit baby boys should take a page from Andy Murray’s book. Andy is a brick.

In other news, how cute is this photo?

"Hi guys. I'm cute"

 (Pics: Getty)