Tag: Wimbledon

Tammy Won the Second Set and the Match

Now Tammy has just beated the world’s number two Jelena Jankkovic, 6-3, 6-2 to book her place in the quarter final for the first time ever at Wimbledon. Her next opponent will be the reigning champion Venus Williams, the seventh seed. As always, Tammy will be the underdog.

Actually I am not much of a tennis fan. That is to say, I don’t stay up all night to watch a match or anything like that. But this run of victories by Tammy is really a history in the making. I have known her for a long time and admired her work ethic and her personality. She never shows bad emotions on the court, and watching her play against Jankovic, she was very focused and very sharp. She hit the ground strokes like a bullet.

Jankovic, on the other hand, never found her rhythm. She let Tammy dictating her moves since the game one. Tammy took the ball very early and made difficult angles for her so that she had to cover much more of the court than Tammy did. And she made much more unforced errors. It is amazing to see how Tammy actually made a short work of Jankovic, beating her in less than an hour. Considering that Jankovic was a semi finalist at Australian Open and French Open, this is truly amazing, and as I said, a history that is unfolding before our very eyes.

So I will watch the next match against Venus Williams, who has won Wimbledon maybe three times already. But now anything can happen….

Tammy won Third Round

By now all you Tammy fans will have known already that Tammy has already beaten New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic in the 3rd round, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Her run is impressive indeed, considering that she is now 31 years old, which makes her perhaps the most senior in the women’s competition at Wimbledon this year.

Tammy has made the 4th round at Wimbledon seven times already in her career. Her next opponent in Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic. Go! Go! Tammy!

Tammy Again!

Now this blog threatens to become a Tammy fan club blog! But this is something amazing, considering that Tammy is now 31 years old and she is playing like she’s 17 🙂 To update, Tammy just entered the third round of Wimbledon  after beating Vera Zvonareva from Russia, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. Moreover, she teams up with her partner Yaroslava Shvedova, also from Russia and the team beat Su-wei Hsieh and Mashona Washington in Ladies’ Doubles match. So double celebrations for Tammy!

Zvonareva is seeded 13 in the tournament, and Tammy is ranked an outside 83 entering Wimbledon. Any match that she faces will be against players ranked higher, so any win for her since the 1st round will be upsets. All of Thailand is now rooting for Tammy. Go! Go! Tammy.

Here is match statistics.

Tammy

Cheers for Tammy!

Now let’s take a break from Nagarjuna. It has been a few days now since Tammy Tanasugarn’s historic win at the Ordina Open in the Netherlands. She beat Russia’s Dinara Safina in straight sets. Now Tammy is making all of Thailand proud. I think all Thais are now rooting for her to do well again at Wimbledon. Go, go Tammy!

“In a Zone”

Watching a preview of the upcoming Wimbledon tennis championship the other day, I watched Roger Federer being interviewed about his experiences at Wimbledon (much happier than at Roland Garros, I presume). He talked about ‘being in a zone.’ “When you are in the zone, you don’t pay attention to who you are playing with or whether you are making the right shot or whatever, you are only aware of the tennis only,” he seemed to be saying something like this, as far as I remember.

I understand his point. And this is much like being in a meditative state. When we practice meditation, the goal is just to be in this state that Federer is talking about. It is a very alert state, very mindful, very wakeful. There is no chance that dukkha (or suffering, but an alternative translation is ‘unsatisfactoriness’) can enter your sense doors if you are in this state. So when Federer is being very sharp on the tennis court, we can also be very sharp during the meditation. I remember Phakchok Rinpoche say that when you are meditating you have to be like an eagle watching the field for preys. He is of course not advocating that we hunt preys, but the point is that we need to be as alert and wakeful as the eagle. Instead of watching for preys, we watch for any possibility that the defilements will come through our eyes, ears, nose and so on. This is also like Federer watching the tennis ball when he is playing (or should I be talking about Nadal instead? 🙂 )