Happy 27th, Rafa!

Photo by Benito Pérez-Barbadillo

It’s certainly been a strange year since we last celebrated Rafa’s birthday. We went from the high of Rafa breaking Borg’s record at Roland Garros to the low of wondering when (or maybe if) Rafa was going to play again and then back to the high of the ridiculously good record he’s produced this year. What adventures will the next year give us? Who knows. The life, after all, is crazy. We can only hope that Rafa remains healthy and happy.

2 Jun 2013 | by miri | 39 Comments

Fire and Ice (and everything nice)

We started out by Going Blue. Last year, we got Fired Up. This year? Well, we are going to embrace the contrast that is Rafa by working with Fire and Ice. Why? Rafa’s wearing red again (“Light Crimson“) and a quasi white/greyish color (“Pure Platinum“), and Fire and Ice is the best theme I could think of.

How can you show your fire and ice to support Rafa’s attempt to win an unimaginable 8th Roland Garros? The tradition started with us painting toe or fingernails

25 May 2013 | by miri | 7 Comments

RafaLint: December 30th

Photo by Beth Wilson

Hello everybodyguys. Looks like we have some time to kill, no? To help keep us occupied and remind us of happier times, @SW828 has put together a photo album on flickr. Check out her excellent photos – she’s great at capturing Rafa moments.

What about you? Do you have some Rafa pictures to share? If you have them online, send me a link. If you have them on flickr and have Rafa tagged, you can easily put them into

30 Dec 2012 | by miri | 6 Comments

RafaLint: December 20th

One more week, people…one more week….

Tips for returning serve:

Posted by australianopentv.

Articles:

Rafael Nadal confirma su asistencia para el torneo Godó, que se jugará en abril – via the EFE. Rafa will play Barcelona (mangle)
The Struggle Down Under – by Steve Tignor (tennis.com). A look back at the 2012 AO final.
If the service in Abu Dhabi ain’t broke, don’t fix it – by Steve Elling
Rafael Nadal Focused on Third Mubadala World Tennis Championship Title – via mubadalawtc.com
The Toss: Tennis players as fictional TV characters – via si.com. Not sure

20 Dec 2012 | by miri | 6 Comments

Your opinion: Rafa’s best matches

Photo by Beth Wilson

As a somewhat newly converted (2011) Rafa fan, Nils sent me an email asking what Rafa’s best 10-15 matches are. I told her my thoughts (see below), but figured you guys would have plenty of good suggestions too. So, what you do you think of when you think, “Rafa’s best matches”? They can be from any tournament or any round…

Me? I like close matches. That doesn’t necessarily mean the ones where Rafa is playing his absolute best (try the lop-sided 2008 Roland Garros final

8 Nov 2012 | by miri | 57 Comments

dutchgirl gets lucky at Wimbledon

Photo by Myra Hijzen

I’ll never know why I didn’t do it before, but when the ballot was announced for this year’s Wimbledon, I thought to myself: ‘Why not give it a try?’ And so I did, and as a reward I was offered two Court 2 tickets, for Thursday 28th June 2012. Fellow Rafa fan Liz (@lizziebee2), who I met in Paris and Seville last year, was sweet enough to offer me to stay at her house in London, so off I went. I

7 Jul 2012 | by dutchgirl | 11 Comments

Witnessing HIS7ORY Part 2

The final

I think I always knew it was going to be a Nadal-Djokovic final. Maybe it’s my 6th sense or the belief that things always have to be done the hard way. I had been so incredibly lucky the whole trip that I was wondering if a happy ending was too much to hope for. However in my heart I had faith in Rafa and knew he had it in him to get this win against his toughest opponent yet. After

18 Jun 2012 | by Nana | 16 Comments

Witnessing HIS7ORY Part 1

My RG debut

In the grandest scheme of things, tennis is just a game and Rafa winning 7 Roland Garros titles was never going to be like finding a cure to cancer or ending famines. However, I live in a relatively peaceful world with mundane, minor concerns, being able to witness in person my hero making tennis his7ory is enough to fill me with such joy and hope that I feel the world is now a better place.

My trip

17 Jun 2012 | by Nana | 18 Comments

Fire up for Rafa!

We had so much fun going blue last year, why not do something similar this year? Problem is, what color is that darn shirt? Red? Pink? Raspberry? The official name from Nike is “Scarlet Fire”, so fire shall be our theme. It’s a fitting one since our boy is often so fired up on the court.

How can you show that your fired up for Rafa’s attempt to win a historic 7th Roland Garros? The tradition started with us painting toe or fingernails to match Rafa’s shirts,

28 May 2012 | by miri | 20 Comments

Madrid Friday ramblings

Random Thoughts because there was no Rafa today

Some additional thoughts on Rafa’s loss

I read in the comments that some people thought Rafa was not trying to win his match against Verdasco. I don’t believe that and for evidence I will site the last game. If he didn’t want to win, he could have spun his serves in and let Fernando whack them, or even thrown in one or two double faults. No instead he threw down 3 aces. Unfortunately, you need

12 May 2012 | by DebLDecker | 35 Comments