Rafa Bows

After 31 straight wins at Roland Garros, Rafa Nadal lost today to Robin Soderling, a 24 year-old Swede in four sets. A huge upset. The four time French Open champ will have to wait until next year for his fifth title. The way is somewhat clearer now for Roger Federer to win his first French Open.

It was another of those great days in May that are not nearly common enough. The lilacs continue to bloom. This is another variety of lilac that always blooms about ten days after the common variety. The blooms and scent are somewhat alike, but recognizably different. The back yard smells mah-velous.



St Paul has a poetry project as part of the maintenance of the sidewalks in my part of the city, at least. They have a cache of poems that they imprint in new slabs of sidewalk when they are put in. Public Art St Paul had a contest to get people to send in short poems suitable for public display. They had an entry fee and a first place prize of $150. Their site has an explanation and the poems themselves. I discovered this example on Goodrich Avenue, I think, several blocks east of here.


Herb is back from another trip to Chicago and he brought back some of that Japanese candy Pocky. He says that he drove the rain on the road between here and Hudson. The sidewalks here remain dry.

Marie Park courts vs Roland Garros

Across the pond there are a couple of tennis courts. I played two sets of tennis there this afternoon in 80 luxurious degrees. This is Marie Park in Mendota Heights where a lot of my summer tennis ball smacking is done. The courts are well sheltered from the wind and well hidden from casual passersby. The pond shelters a lot of birds. Today they were notably red-wing blackbirds.


The French Open begins May 24, next Sunday, at Roland Garros in Paris. They have a website where one could purchase tickets, usable if one were to spend some time in Paris between May 24 and June 7, when Raphael Nadal takes his trophy home (and his check for about a million dollars.) I was looking at this year's price structure to see what it might cost to actually take in a few matches. Of course, it varies depending on the part of the tourney one wants to see (the finals are the most expensive) and the venue where one sees the match. The main stadium (Phillippe-Chatrier) is the most expensive and Suzanne-Lenglen is next, and it ranges down to the 15-20 outside courts that hold the matches of relative unknowns during the first week. There are differences in the prices within the large stadia, too, depending on how close to the action one wants to be. Lots of differences, but the range of prices for a single day's ticket ranges from the best seats at the finals at P-C at 85 euros (about $115) to matches on the outside courts during the first week at 21 euros (about $28.50). These are tickets for all day, so one would see a lot more tennis the first week, because there are a lot more players still in the draw then. One should probably factor in the price of the airline ticket to France, too, but these are numbers to consider.

A schematic of the center of the tennis world starting Sunday - Roland Garros.

Herb and the Prairie Princess

I watched way more TV than usual today. I watched the entire Wimbledon singles final on NBC. Rafa Nadal edged Roger Federer 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 in the longest final in Wimby history. It was a great match, but it used up most of the day. It's been a good year for Spain. The soccer team won the Euro 2008 tournament a week or so ago, and now Rafa is the second Spaniard to win the singles title in the history of the tournament.

This is a photo from two days ago at the races. It's the last good photo of Herb and PP before PP went back to Glyndon to continue saving the planet and especially the part that has prairie on it. In the photo Herb is hawking Grey Poupon in a humorous way.


It was a warm and humid day and I took a day off from my own tennis wars. My exercise was limited to a walk to Linwood Park with PP to check out the prairie plant garden there, and to water some of the young trees that are dying of thirst. There may be some rain coming overnight or tomorrow, but the city is currently pretty dry.

Saturday

It was a busy Saturday. The rain finished in time so that I could play some tennis with the older gentlemen. It was necessary to sweep the water from the courts, but luckily Curt showed up early with a broom and did the job. We managed to play three sets, but my level of play was affected by the gusty winds, and my general lack of inspired play meant that I was on the winning side of only one of the sets. The zone has fled from my life, but I'm hoping for its return.

The French Open is completing this weekend. The Serb youngster, Anna Ivanovic beat Marat Safin's little sister, Dinara Safina, 6-4, 6-3 to win her first major. She takes over as number one woman player in the world from Maria Sharapova. The French has been owned by Justine Henin the last few years, but she unexpectedly retired this year and didn't play at Roland Garros. Tomorrow Raphael Nadal tries for his fourth consecutive win in the Open. He's contesting the finals again with Roger Federer, the world's number one man. It's on broadcast TV at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, live.

Herb and I planted some veggies in the backyard patch this afternoon - tomatoes and yellow peppers. We had a pretty good crop last year and I'm hoping for a repeat. It's been a late season, and I'm late planting by a week or so, but I think we'll have locally grown Early Girls in August. BC doesn't complain about non-native plants when they are edible. She's spending the summer working with prairie restoration and native plants in Glyndon and may not benefit much from the veggie largess.