Tag: tennis

Underrated: Andrea Temesvari

Who?

In la primavera a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, in the summer it turns to tennis. Back in the days of wooden racquets, all white clothes and Dan Maskell I was crazy about tennis. I used to play all the time becoming quite adept at the sport.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Hungarian tennis player called Andrea Temesvari. She batted balls in the 1980’s and is a contemporary of me. When she was winning the Italian Open in 1982 I was celebrating being crowned school champion. It was a vintage year for tennis. Continue reading “Underrated: Andrea Temesvari”

A great show

I spent the whole morning watching the Australian Open semi-final between Andy Murray and David Ferrer. I have to say you Aussies provide a great show. If it isn’t the Australia Day fireworks in the middle of the Nadal-Ferrer match, it’s a flock of seagulls invading the stadium, shortly followed by a very large moth who obviously wanted a closer view of the match. It was a very colourful spectacle, with wee Scottish flags being waved here and there, along with a group of young ladies holding up cards spelling out “Marry me Murray” and at least one supporter with the saltire painted on his face. Then there were the Ferrer fans with their “Ferrero Rocher” banner. I loved the Foreign Legion caps complete with neck protectors of the ball boys and girls, though I thought most of the matches were played in the evening. It was good to see Ken Rosewall among the spectators, who gave great support to both players. There was the idiot who shouted out “Come on Murray” just as our hero was serving, but he might have been a Scottish rather than an Aussie idiot.

The tennis itself was fantastic and to top it all, the Scot won. That’s not something I can say very often. Roll on Sunday!