Queen's

Sitting on a train en route to Bournemouth simply to dress as a chilli wearing a sombrero to my university’s Summerball this evening only to return back to London come tomorrow morning, looking extremely worse for wear and no doubt with the feeling of nausea never too far away, I still know that I won’t have any regrets at all about the amount of travelling I have, and will, be doing this fortnight. 

Usually I only come home from university about once a month, perhaps longer if I’m tied down in Bournemouth for whatever reason, but this fortnight will see me come to London three times, travel to Ascot five times, and sleep in Bournemouth – my home from home – even less. 

The first day of a busy week was yesterday. After grabbing tickets to Queens – or as I put it to friends, ‘pre-Wimbledon’ – I spent the whole day yesterday watching a small yellow ball be hit as hard and low as possible around a patch of grass. And I loved it.

Rain delays apart (typical London weather), I managed to see an unknown French chap by the name of Mannerino despatch of a far higher-ranked opponent in Juan Del Potro, saw a tightly fought contest unfold between world-class tennis players David Nalbandian and Fernando Verdasco – with the Spaniard winning in comfortable straight-sets fashion, before cheekily nipping into centre court (the one court I didn’t actually have a ticket for) to catch a glimpse of World No.1 Rafael Nadal against Radek Stepanek. 

Queen’s Club itself is remarkable. The whole place oozes class, and has much the upper hand on my rather feeble-looking Chingford School of Tennis I’m a member of. The toilets even had marble in.

The only down-side, from a student’s point-of-view, were the prices – sipping a £5 bottle of corona and chewing every bite of a £8 baguette has never taken so long and been so well-received. 

After attending Wimbledon and the ATP World Tour Finals in the past two years, Queens sure does rank up there with the two. Sure, there are less crowds and slightly less world-class players in the likes of Federer and Djokovic, who didn’t attend the Queens tournament this year, there is still so much quality tennis on show that it still makes you realise two vital things: 1) You’re witnessing the best players in a sport in the world just metres away from yourself, essentially witnessing history. 2) No matter how well you think you play, compared to these highly-skilled chaps, you’re about as good at tennis as a paraplegic in a coma. 

Oh, and Roddick – at time of blogging – is through to a tasty semi-final match up against Murray, with Brit No.2 James Ward in the second bout. Dare I say it, but I really, really hope the American shines through...