Now that I finally have some vacation plans in the works, I can write what is actually Part 1 of my little tennis experience. I had just entered the area and walked into some exhibitors hall and saw a small crowd of people just standing there. Like any curious being I walked over and had a peak over the crowd and suddenly I had eye contact with #1 ranked tennis player Caroline Wozniacki. A fine start to the day.

For those of you living in a cave (or Knivsta), Caroline is from Denmark and her parents are from Poland and are actually still training her. She has been ranked #1 on the WTA tour for 37 weeks and at home is more popular than, well, anyone. I had read a few articles which all talked about something magical while watching her play. Apparently she inspired some guy to write an entire book about one of her key matches. And there are always groups of around 5 middle-aged men in the crowd cheering her on (yes, they were in Båstad also). So when I saw an ad that she would be playing at Swedish Open, I had to see for myself.

We start with a clip from her first match in Båstad where Alizé Cornet seems to have left her phone on. The smile says it all. Every other player I saw there was annoyed constantly, so much that one wonders why they are playing tennis at all if they get so upset. Caroline enjoys it. And her style of play is enjoyable to watch since she has this perfect precision to place the ball in the back corners right on the line and has the skill to have her opponent running all over the place. And for those of you interested in grunts, I can report on that since I was sitting about 10 m away. It starts very softly and increases until she hits the ball but there is no outcry like her Russian counterparts. This is efficiently directly the energy at the ball and not any method to mess up her opponent.

And then during her second match against Sofia Arvidsson she just all of a sudden could not serve. There was no real sign of injury/trauma to her arm other than the entire set she had just played. But her trainer did one of those quick arm checks and I recognized the result. Shoulder problems. I still have shoulder problems...bitch of an injury. So she stopped playing since Båstad is hardly the place to kill yourself to win. But watching the clip above from 2009 when she was climbing the ladder will show you that she is a fighter. Aj what a painful clip. Solid muscle cramps are what characterize an MTB marathon, especially in Norway where they have real hills. But you fight on.

Which brings me back to cycling again. Why do elite cyclists quit as soon as they are a bit behind? I never quit and the organizers have to pull me off the course before I will. And that is why, to this day, I still think that a finish is higher ranked than any DNF.