It's Wimbledon Time!!!

Oh how I love Wimbledon!  Oh how I love to watch the tennis!

It's that time of year again!  One of my favourite times of year.

When I was working, I would take some annual leave for at least a week, usually the second week of Wimbledon, so that I could sit up all night watching the tennis!

Wimbledon and the Australian Open are my favourites of the Grand Slam tennis events.

I've been lucky enough to attend the Australian Open twice and I hope to get there again in the future.

My Mum was a big tennis fan and I was introduced to tennis back in the 70s when John Newcombe, Tony Roche and Yvonne Goolagong were champion players.

She got so much pleasure from tennis and had a little bit of a 'thing' for John Newcombe (along with a million other Australian women!).

She saw the potential in Patrick Rafter when she watched him play his first few tournaments and told me to 'wait and see' how brilliant he would become.

Even though she always barracked for him, she didn't like Lleyton Hewitt, citing him to be a 'cocky little upstart'.

I, however, loved Lleyton and still enjoy watching him play.  What I love most about him is his guts and determination to fight to the very end when he plays.

I never give up on Lleyton in any of his matches until the last ball is hit, because I know that he fights back and that the game can turn around at any time!

Federer and Nadal are wonderful to watch, as well as the Aussie girl Samantha Stosur ... let's hope she can go a bit further this year.

I also like to barrack for the underdog, so I will almost always cheer the least likely winner on!  Not just in tennis, but in most sporting events!

Now that I am over half a century old, I am not as resilient as I once was, so I need to prepare and train like all good athletes.

This means having long naps in the afternoons and it means eating properly, so that I don't want to curl up and fall asleep every five minutes and it means drinking lots of water to keep hydrated.

So, these days, I not only get to enjoy the tennis on TV, but at the same time I remember my Mum and wish that she was still around to have our long discussions about the tennis players, old and new, and how they played the night before.

It's only day one of Wimbledon and it's not even midnight yet ... but I am yawning my head off and I have to be up early for aqua-aerobics.

Time to find the draw and strategically plan my Wimbledon nights!  Choose my favourite players and plan to watch their matches between sleeps!

I've watched a couple of hours of tennis already tonight and now it's time to sleep.

Ah to be young again ... but YAY!  It's Wimbledon time!!