That Bloke In The Big Smoke

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same"
(Rudyard Kipling's "If")

Every year for two weeks, the British put on the greatest show on earth. I don't care what anybody else says, but there is nothing as good as The Championships at Wimbledon. It's the (only) highlight in the British tennis calendar and the pinnacle of the sport. At once the game's oldest tournament and arguably its most innovative. It aspires a lofty, secluded status. It oozes class, largely upper-middle. And the British are only eager to oblige with a spectacle that smoothly links the stiff upper-lipped past with the dynamic present, leaving you starry-eyed and hungry for more.

Everything about it is different. The name. The colours. The uniforms. The dress codes. The lack of advertisements. The surface. The traditions. Oh yes, the traditions. 1pm starts on show courts, except for the second weekend. No play on the middle Sunday. Strawberries, cream and Pimmsmania. Curtsies, bowed heads, royalty in their box. Inclement weather, early British wild card exits, ball boys and ball girls working like precision pulleys. But in truth it was not ever thus. Indeed the greatest trick the British ever pulled, was convincing the world that tradition could not be manufactured. And I'm not about to reveal our hand either.

That is the beauty of SW19. It transports you away from reality to a land conquered by a select few. The true legends. And this year's edition was no different. From Serena Williams, to Novak Djokovic, Martina Hingis and Leader Paes, this was another vintage crop. It's twenty-four years since my uncle introduced me to the wonder that is grass court tennis and my love for the game has never diminished. I have also never missed a men's singles final since then and although my man fell short again today, it is worth recalling the immortal words penned by Britain's own Kipling. It adorns the doorway onto Centre Court and rings true to the way we should approach life in general. As the sun sets on yet another magical experience, there remains only one thing to say: Game, set and match!

...I arrived in London to settle here permanently. The photos below were taken on the night and subsequent morning of that memorable journey. It was my first flight to Blighty in three years - and I only stayed a night on that occasion - so this was actually my first proper visit in nearly four years. I was over the moon, making childhood dreams come true and all that jazz.


With mum at check-in in Muscat (then Seeb) International Airport. Dad had a separate flight that night to attend a conference in Italy. I think my sis was still in India. You can see bits of my Liverpool jersey that I was wearing in honour of the Champions League Final that was taking place as we were flying towards the Continent. The Mighty Reds were taking on The Rossoneri (AC Milan) in Athens. The pilot was kind enough to give us two score updates along the way. Unfortunately, we lost 2-1.

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I wish there was a job that existed along the lines of "Professional Sport Armchair Spectator" because not only would I be very good at it, but I'd also bring two decades worth of extensive work experience. It occurred to me that in the past ten days, I have been smothered with at least one match/race of all the sports and teams which I follow and/or love. Starting with cricket, India and England have been in action, in football both England and Liverpool have flattered to deceive (as usual), Federer's lost at the US Open, Usain Bolt got disqualified from one race, won another and helped set a world record in a third, while the Rugby World Cup got underway and Sebastian Vettel won yet another Formula One race. Sportsgasmic!

Click on picture for link to book on Amazon UK.

There are several reasons why I fell in love with the game of cricket and this book is one of them. It was probably the first dedicated book about cricket that I ever bought and I remember the occasion clearly. My dad's favourite bookshop in the UK was Dillon's on Gower Street in Central London, now a branch of Waterstones. It felt massive then and even today it's the largest academic bookstore in Europe! I used to enjoy going to Dillon's on our biennial visits to the UK while growing up in Oman. On my first-ever visit there in the summer of 1992 (when I was eight) I bought this book. I wasn't a huge fan of cricket yet but I was slowly getting into it. For better or for worse, this book hooked me for life. I spent hours poring through every one of its 256 pages, the prose about the game's history and the tables of statistics detailing every record worth knowing.

Pakistan were touring England that summer and people who followed that series will remember it well. I know we were in town when Aamir Sohail scored a double century, at Edgbaston if memory serves. And I think he scored 205, possibly not-out. But the series made headlines for all the wrong reasons, what with ball-tampering allegations against the Pakistanis and what not. That was probably the first Test series that I had ever followed. Two years earlier I had been aware of India's tour of England and even bought my first-ever plastic cricket set during a trip to Snowdonia in Wales with some family friends, who also bought a set for themselves. But I know I didn't follow that series. I have a vague memory of watching part of a Test on the same family friend's TV, then going out into the driveway with their two boys and trying to emulate the players with our new cricket sets. Don't think we broke any car windows but our dads did break the bank to catch some action at Lord's. They also went to Wimbledon and caught some Centre Court action. So much for taking their boys along!

The emphasis in this book was obviously on Test cricket and though I probably wasn't aware of who he was at the time, it should come as no surprise that it was compiled by Bill Frindall. When I tried searching for the book (just out of plain curiosity) before I started on this entry, his name just popped out of nowhere. I couldn't remember the name of the book nor who had written it, but merely by recalling the image of the book in my mind, the first name that my memory bank associated with it was the Bearded Wonder. Lo and behold, it was by Frindall. I'm sure it's still stored somewhere in our house in Oman but I wish I had it in front of me right now!

(1992 was probably the year I fell in love with the game. You can read about another memorable formative cricketing experience from the same year that I posted about in March 2005).

That the six-time Wimbledon champion had never lost a Grand Slam match after going 2-sets-to-nil up in 178 previous encounters said everything you needed to know about the magnitude of the final result. As a massive fan of the Swiss maestro, I felt absolutely shattered at the end, and therefore I cannot begin to imagine what it must've been like for him! But ever the graceful champion, he waited patiently after his loss before exiting Centre Court with the victor. Most other players would've made a hasty departure. Not my man, Roger Federer. He will have to wait till next year for another pop at emulating Pistol Pete's record at SW19. That's ok.

But what a match it was. As usual the Fed Express charged out of the blocks and took an early lead, including a break on the Frenchman's first service game. It was his only break point in the match. More often than not I have felt frustrated with how few break points Federer converted, even in matches he had won, but this time he had a 100% record... and lost. That's how the cookie crumbles. The Frenchman on the other hand, as John McEnroe put it, looked like he had walked onto court straight out of a freezer. However as he thawed his game improved and eventually he matched Federer, as they both kept serve until early into the third set. Even though Federer played a brilliant tie-break to take the second, one felt bad for Tsonga falling two sets behind despite playing brilliantly in all but the first three games. And then the tide turned. Federer was broken for only the third time in the entire Championships! Little did we know what was to come, though I must admit that I did begin to worry if Federer could figure out how to deal with Tsonga's brutal ground strokes. My mind cast back to the 2009 US Open final which Federer lost in five-sets to Juan Martin del Potro, another powerful baseline hitter. While McEnroe suggested that he should slice more to negate the power, Federer didn't find a solution.

Tsonga broke Federer twice more, once in each of the remaining sets and served for the match. He closed it out comfortably. In the final analysis, it was striking how Federer hit only half as many unenforced errors as his opponent, but that simply illustrated the manner in which he lost, the Swiss was simply blown away by a stronger opponent. There were a lot of winners from the back of the court. When Tsonga hits them, they stay hit. Not to take anything away from the Frenchman, but I wonder how much of his success was down to the slower courts, heavier balls and tightly-strung big rackets. That said, there was no doubt he deserved to win today.

There isn't much left for me at this year's Wimbledon. It's weird how obsessed I've become with Federer's magical play that I've kinda lost interest to follow any other matches as closely. I sound like a snob but that's the Fed Effect. He may not rule the courts as he once did but he's still the most graceful player on the circuit, and certainly the most graceful I've ever watched since I started following the game twenty years ago. Every match is like a blank canvas upon which he weaves his mastery. I don't mind dropping whatever I'm doing to watch him play in the hope I'll be treated to a moment (or few) of magic, and more often than not he doesn't leave me disappointed. Millions around the world know what I'm talking about. And he's such an amazing ambassador for the sport. I love the fact he brought fashion into the men's game, I love how he never grunts on court, I love how he has so much respect for the game's history and past greats, I love how he hasn't given up yet despite the agony of losing so many matches and Grand Slam finals to Nadal, I love how he speaks so many languages fluently, I love how he has what appears to be a stable, supportive and loving family, I love how he knows about cricket because of his South African mum. Man, I could go on. What a player, what a man.

The greatest match of all time. 'Nuff said. I pray for a rematch on the Third of July and revenge for Roger would be the icing on the cake!

8 July 1995. Steffi Graf met Arantxa-Sanchez Vicario in the first of back-to-back finals at Wimbledon. This one will be remembered for the titanic 20-minute 11th game in the third set. It featured 13 deuces and 18 game points, ending with the German eventually breaking the Spaniard, before securing her sixth Wimbledon title on her serve. Graf went on to retain her title in 1996. Sadly, Sanchez-Vicario never played another Wimbledon final, but she will always be remembered for "that game"! I was in Chennai for summer holidays and I certainly remember talking about it at cricket coaching the next day. We knew we'd witnessed something special.

This one's from 3 July 1996. During one particular rain delay on Centre Court, Cliff Richard was invited to keep the crowd entertained until play resumed. Another golden moment from Wimbledon!

It begins a week today so I've decided to share a memorable clip as we countdown towards The Championships' 125th edition. This first one took place on 22 June 1981. Somehow, McEnroe went on to win the whole thing!