Wimbledon fortnight is like a holiday to me. I try not to work in the afternoons or make any appointments or write letters or blogs. Instead I spend hours watching wonderful athletes play their guts and hearts out at a game I loved but was never much good at. The stand-out event so far this year was Cori – Coco – Gauff in the third round playing Polona Hercog of Slovenia.
Wonderful to see such grit in a teenager. She'd lost the first set and was 5-2 down in the second, facing match point. Looking close to tears and even closer to defeat – nothing she'd done so far had had worked against a strong, tricky opponent who was playing wonderful tennis. Everyone was expecting her to fold; everyone was disappointed in her. But she didn't fold, she kept thinking & trying. And, with a little help from the other side of the net, she pulled herself together, thought out a different strategy and battered on.
A life lesson – it 's not that she succeeded; she might not have. But what's so encouraging to an old broad who's been defeated many times, she had the grit to stand up straight and fucking try.