Born To Run

By Rosangel Valenti, TW Contributing Editor

Right now, I'm thinking what a strange old world I'm living in: it's been an epic day and night, and by no means everything that's happened has been tennis-related, but there are whole chains of causes and effects and connections between the various things that have been going on, including TennisWorld itself; my day could be exhibit number one in someone's living proof of chaos theory in action. Funny how a life can go on for weeks, months or even years with nothing much occurring that's new or significant, then in one day so much happens that it's hard to take it all in.

Back in the morning, I got up early with one central thought: that in the afternoon at 2.30, I would be at the Hurlingham Club in Fulham armed with my cameras to photograph Rafael Nadal's exhibition match with Stanislas Wawrinka. I'd put my equipment together the night before, so when I left the house, all I needed to do was put my bags into the car. I know that the road outside the club has meter parking, and on that basis I didn't worry too much about weight - it's not far to walk to get to the courts once you're inside. I had an appointment to take care of before setting off for Fulham, but had been told that the meeting would be over by noon, which left me plenty of time. Some of you may know this already, but when I was made redundant from my full-time job in 2007, I spent a while struggling to find a replacement role, at a time when almost no firm in my sector was hiring (too many of their chiefs were probably worrying about whether they would even have viable companies to run in the near term). For the moment I've settled on doing some freelance projects; it's only part time, but something to do for now. On this basis I'd delivered a report, and the meeting was set up to discuss it. You've probably guessed what happened - the meeting overran. That's not all - at 12.25 p.m., with me fidgeting furiously because I really needed to leave, the news was broken that it could take a month or more for me to get paid, for reasons that don't matter here. Fuming but lacking time to argue, I nodded politely and said my goodbyes; by 12.30 I was sprinting to my car. That dispute will have to be taken up again next week. I'm not cut out to be a freelancer in this way - an unpredictable income stream really is something I loathe dealing with. Considering that I analyse businesses for a living, some people might think that I'd enjoy effectively running a small one for myself, but nothing could be further from the truth.

When I hit unexpectedly heavy traffic on the M25, my mood didn't have far to plummet. For all of you who don't live here, the M25 is blandly advertised as "London's Orbital Motorway", and its reputation for unexplained stoppages is legendary - that is, once you get past the magic spot, you realise that there was nothing to be seen that could possibly explain the fifteen minutes you just spent with your engine idling. It's chaos theory again - maybe someone ten miles ahead in an articulated lorry overtook a slower lorry, and caused everyone behind to either hit their brakes hard or move over into a faster lane. Stuck with nowhere to go, I started to think that disaster number two could be about to occur - after securing a much sought-after photographer's pass for the exhibition, I would be horribly late for it. I'd been making a similar journey to get to Queen's Club all of last week, and although there were issues, they had nothing to do with the motorway.

By half past one, me and my car finally crawled off the M25. By then I'd worked out that my most viable plan was to go to Southfields (this is where most fans ride into Wimbledon) and leave the car, taking the Tube two stops to Putney Bridge, the nearest stop to the Hurlingham Club. Getting to Southfields without delay involved going exactly no faster than 55 miles an hour in a 50 mph zone full of speed cameras that had twice before generated speeding tickets for me, but aside from that risk it was the right move - driving between Wimbledon and Fulham can take forever a busy day. Naturally, I'd be forced to carry my heavy bags a lot further than I'd anticipated; my shoulders were going to hate me. I was in luck upon reaching Southfields - all of the "Wimbledon Tennis" traffic signs have gone up, but no-one has yet blocked off all the parking in many side-roads, and someone had just vacated a space near the Tube stop. By two o'clock, I'd arrived at Putney Bridge station, feeling like a pack animal. I hadn't eaten all day.

To get to the Hurlingham Club from there, you turn left and then left again. I knew this perfectly well - I've been a guest at the tournament before now, and even, years ago, having played tennis there with friends who belonged to the club. It's hard to forget a sports club that has its very own lake (see the last picture in my sequence linked below).

But instead I turned right. I think I must have been light-headed after everything that had happened earlier. There's a pedestrian passageway there that leads to another street, parallel to the one where the club is situated, and I found myself walking along it instead. By the time I'd noticed my mistake, there was no point in going back - the quickest way was forward, then cutting along a side-road.

Nearly twenty years ago I lived on that section of the street, which explains my mistake pretty well. I had never gone back there for a very specific reason: when I lived there I was with someone who was special to me - the father of my son, who we lost when he was young, as many of you already know. After he and I broke up - for reasons that I won't go into here - I'd moved to get away; the place was filled with too many memories and I wanted to be somewhere fresh. I know I walked right past the house where so many important things had happened in my life, because I couldn't help looking for it. The pain of that particular parting had mostly gone, chiefly because there was an eventual getting-back-together before a final breakup after our son died, so in some ways I wouldn't have minded recognising the old place. However, all of the houses look similar in style, and maybe someone had painted ours. I drew a complete blank on the street number, and couldn't think what else to look for. Odd to think I'd become so disconnected from such a big part of my own life - it did feel like a loss.

With time pressing, I finally got to the Hurlingham Club with ten minutes to spare, feeling pretty rough. Not just because of the thoughts that accompanied my wrong turn, but also because the day was humid, and I was really tired of carrying those bags. And then finally, once I'd collected my pass, discovered that food in the press room had run out, and got to the position allocated for photographers, there in front of me was Rafael Nadal. I'd been so much absorbed by other things in the previous few hours that I was almost surprised to see him there, in his Wimbledon whites with small purple touches. Obviously Stan Wawrinka was also on the court, but I did what just about every other photographer there was doing, pointing my camera at El Numero Uno, and keeping it pointed in that direction. . . . none of the TWibe expected me to return home with a portfolio of Wawrinka pictures, did they? There were even some video cameras being used there, which is very unusual to see at such a small event, and they weren't pointed at Stan either for the most part.

As for the match, I have a series of impressions, many of which were reconfirmed when I looked though my pictures at home - you can find the enlargeable thumbnails on this link. First, if my aim for the day had been to create a collection of pictures entitled "The Many Grimaces of Rafa Nadal", I was definitely in the right place at the right time. I really enjoy photographing players' expressions, and have captured many of Nadal's before now, but I've never been there before at a time when when he's appeared so joyless about almost every aspect of his performance, whether indicating it with his face, harsh my-game-sucks-today growling noises, or by  expressive sweeps of his arms. He seemed to be doing these things after almost every point, even some of those that he won. I believe I captured a feeble fist pump in there somewhere, but it was all alone amongst the rest of the body language. In quite a few of my pictures taken on the left-hand side of the court (from where I was standing) he's anxiously looking at or speaking to someone to his right, who would have been seated in the zone to my extreme left. I'm assuming that this was Toni Nadal, but couldn't see him from my spot to confirm it.

Second, neither player was playing well for the most part, and rallies were fairly short, mostly ending on errors. I couldn't help noticing how quiet - or non-existent - the applause was after some points, simply because there was nothing to applaud. Being largely corporate guests, the audience wasn't a typical tennis audience, but even so people had been well fed and wined, and normally such a crowd would like to get involved when there's something to get excited about. The one part of the Nadal game that mostly worked pretty well was his serve, though I couldn't make up my mind whether this was because he was serving well, or because in some games Stan's returns were especially poor. They were certainly behaving like many of his other groundstrokes at that juncture, landing in the net or out of court. The first set was won 6-4, with a single break of the Wawrinka serve - which at the time wasn't firing particularly well either, though in that game points were taken with a couple of decent Nadal returns. Wawrinka also lost his serve near the start of the second set, but was able to level again at 3-3, as the error-fest continued. The set went to a tiebreak, and at one stage Rafa held a 5-3 lead there. Neither player was doing much to draw the other into the net, but I believe one of the points that allowed Wawrinka to take that set was a drop shot, that wasn't returned. A couple of times spectacular points were won off Stan's drop shots, but in more cases they won the point for him. If memory serves, he also came up with two winners during the tiebreak - one on the Nadal forehand side, and the other on the backhand side - that the latter simply couldn't move to.

After Stan won the second set, Rafa strode off court for a comfort break, and Stan followed him. It was all over very fast once they returned. After the first few points, it was clear which way the balance was tipping, with Stan comfortably ahead, and the Nadal groundstrokes avoiding the court as though they could be prosecuted for trespassing. For most of the match, when changing sides during play, Rafa had stopped by his chair for a sip of water - not so on multiple match points down. He marched right round to the other side of the net and served right away - to get it over with, I assumed. There was a brief trophy ceremony afterwards, and the players said a few words, which I couldn't make out - I think they were thanking the crowd. Stan looked a little glum - it was probably difficult for him to feel very triumphant in the circumstances.

A few other small observations from the pictures. Rafa the bottle-arranger only had one water-bottle during the match. It was arranged neatly, but all by itself. It's there in the pictures, by his feet. It also appears in some pictures that the right knee isn't bending as much as I'd normally expect - you can decide for yourselves, if you wish to look, but it's consistent with what we know about his injury. Oh, and finally, if you wish to avoid the unhappy expressions, you'll find a smile or two at the end, though I don't think the eyes were really involved in those, including the one at the top of this post.

A press conference had been set up afterwards, around four o'clock, and as you would expect, everyone was crowded into the press room hoping to hear something about the defending champion's decision regarding his Wimbledon participation. What we heard instead was that the press conference had been postponed and would be held at Wimbledon at seven o'clock. Given the circumstances, I was certain that the decision had already been made to pull out. I overheard some members of the press suggesting that he hadn't put everything into the match because it was an exhibition - at that idea, I could only shrug. In any event, I couldn't go to the AELTC, because I'm not accredited there, so I came home. Back through Putney Bridge station for only the second time in almost twenty years, recalling as I did so a quarrel I'd once had there with the above-mentioned long-departed loved one, when I'd stormed off a train and flounced away somewhere. If it hadn't been for being kept late at my meeting, and the traffic on the M25, I'd never even have been at Putney Bridge station, nor would I have walked down the old road and been reminded of old times. Of course, if it hadn't been for TennisWorld, it's also very unlikely that I'd have been there.

Getting off at Southfields, I had time to notice that it has been dressed up for Wimbledon; part of the platform surface is laid out in green, with tennis-court markings, and fresh flower-baskets have been provided. There's also a place to buy food at the station, so I finally got to eat something.  I decided to take a partial back route home, which started out with the drive down Wimbledon Park Road. When I lived nearby there were no speed bumps in the road there - it was always a pleasure to drive along it, smooth and straight, and almost never clogged with traffic except during the Wimbledon fortnight. But otherwise most things are the same as they always were at this time, except for the shape of the roof over Centre Court. Traffic cones line the road to prohibit unauthorised parking, the extortionately expensive temporary car-parks have been set up and labelled clearly in their usual grassy spaces, flower-baskets dangle from lamp-posts, and the green-covered footbridge leading from the car-parks has been set up to span the road. On Monday, these leafy surroundings will be at their busiest - right now there's little happening.

In the rush hour it takes a while to reach my home, and I didn't have music in the car. However, I did have music in my head. Very unexpected. I've said here before that I'm a big Springsteen fan; I don't think I ever mentioned that for years I haven't listened to his earliest albums, up to and including the likes of Born To Run and The River. Not because I don't love them, but because they too bring back the same memories that I'd been confronted with earlier in the day. I'd imagine many people have had this experience with certain music at some time - it becomes a  shared experience that, whether we choose it or not, evokes something that we have tried to move on from. I don't know how to reclaim it without the associations.

I may not be able to listen to Born To Run, but it's appropriate as a title for today's piece, I think, which returns me neatly to the subject of Rafael Nadal. Given his current issues with mobility, which is such a feature of his game, he has clearly made the right decision in announcing that he's not completely fit to attempt the defence of his Wimbledon title. I'm not interested in speculating about any other issues going on in the Nadal camp right now - all I would point out at this stage is that if confidence is a problem for him, it can't realistically be expected to return unless he can move well enough to compete with his usual consistency.

In some ways, most of today's other events also put the Nadal withdrawal straight into perspective for me as a viewer even before I'd seen it confirmed; he needs to do what's best for his body at this stage. Naturally I'll miss watching him hugely; being there on Centre Court to see last year's extraordinary final will probably remain the zenith of my "live" tennis-watching experiences for a very long time; the conclusion was a real moment of joy for me, especially knowing the winner's story and how hard he'd worked to achieve his dream of a Wimbledon title. Given what Rafa achieved then, it's hard to imagine how the timing of his physical issues could have been a lot worse for him. However, he seems sure that he can recover physically, given time, and he'll always be a Wimbledon Champion. As for those of us who are fans, far worse losses -or absences - have happened to many of us in our "real lives" than can ever happen in watching a tennis tournament, even the greatest one there is; I'm in no doubt about that.

Which brings me last, but definitely not least, to remembering steggy, after seeing the tragic news of her passing when I returned home to visit TW. Like many long-time posters here, although I never had the opportunity to meet her, I had the chance to get to know her through her writings here. She had a huge, sharing personality, and was often uproariously funny; few others here could use language as pithily she could. She was also a kind person - I can think of a number of small favours she did me - always with proper moderator-style neutrality, of course. I too was moderated once or twice in the early days - and it was very likely to my benefit in the long run. We of the the TW community who made her acquaintance through this site have much to thank her for.

So, to close, here you may talk about anything that's mentioned above, but (having discussed this with Pete) we're asking one small favour at a sombre moment for those of us who recall steggy - that you all give this space a kind of cyber-Gloom Room status, and at least allow those posters who are saddened by the Nadal withdrawal to express their feelings in peace. No gloating, and no knife-fights, please. We don't want to be forced to moderate here, but we will if we need to.