Queens: rafandready visits the Queen(‘s Club)

Phew…what a day! I arrived at Queens at about 10ish, before the gates opened and Neil Harman (favourable Times journalist)and Annabel Croft (not so favourable commentator :-)) got dropped off by the press vans. The gates opened at about 10.15 so I was straight in and hanging around near the entrance – saw Roddick arrive and then – woohoo – Rafa not long after. It’s weird – from there being no-one around suddenly there was a big gaggle around his car. I

10 Jun 2010 | by rafandready | 15 Comments

rafandready’s Rome report

Last year a group of us (me, Wooffie, Clare, Denzy and Debs who all met through another forum) decided that we would go to Rome to see Rafa in the Masters 1000 event.

Denzy had also been to Monte Carlo and unfortunately got stuck there due to the Icelandic volcano. As she didn’t get home until a couple of days before we were due to fly out to Rome she sadly couldn’t accompany us and we missed her.

So, after much panic, doom and gloom

5 May 2010 | by rafandready | 5 Comments

WTF? rafandready’s last day

I was at the O2 again today – had tickets for the afternoon session (Murray v Verdasco). Rafa had even put in his blog that he would be practising at 2 pm so me (and some fellow Rafateers who are down in London for the WTF and are going to see Rafa play tomorrow – hi Julie, Shani and Clare!) went along to see him.

He “only” practised for one hour today, and without meaning to raise alarm, seemed to have a little niggle with his lower back. But he was interactive with the crowd, smiling when people

26 Nov 2009 | by rafandready | 28 Comments

WFT: rafandready’s back for a practice session [Updated]

Yesterday I was lucky enough to see Rafa practising again on the public practice court, for about two hours, he came on court just after 2 pm and finished at 4 pm when Davydenko arrived for his session.

It was forehand time yesterday – started off going long a lot but by the end was looking great – shame he can’t come straight off a practice court and into a match, firing on both cylinders! He looked mean and moody at the start of the session but by the end was being quite playful with the tennis balls, doing fancy

25 Nov 2009 | by rafandready | 15 Comments

WTF? rafandready’s back for more

Today was the first time I saw Rafa play, and unfortunately he lost. But anyone who follows Rafa will probably not have been surprised, although of course we are disappointed. This was playing The Sod (as I like to call him) on his favourite surface, and Rafa’s least favourite – hard and indoors. He’s only ever won one hard indoor tournament – Madrid in 2005.

The match all went in a complete blur, and in fact when I was on my way home at the end of the day (I got home at 2.15 am having left before

24 Nov 2009 | by rafandready | 16 Comments

rafandready reports from the O2 [Updated]

Hi everybody – just back from a day at the O2 waiting for and then watching Rafa. I am reliably informed by another huge Rafa fan that I met there (there were lots of them) that his hitting partner was James Ward.

Rafa appeared at 2.30, wearing a tight fitting red t-shirt and white shorts plus the trainers from Asian swing. He seemed to be mainly concentrating on backhand, and hitting flat across the net. There were another three crazed Rafa fans there – one of them had a Spanish flag so when he came out to practise we shouted

22 Nov 2009 | by rafandready | 10 Comments