Vamos Brigade in Hamburg

Once again the brigade had representatives to watch Rafa play. This week Alexa, Lara and Kimberly were in Hamburg.

Here are some extracts from their blogs.

Pictures from Kimberly

Lara
ok report : I arrived at about 11.00 am. First I went to the court where Muster and Novacek played.. but it was quite boring coz Muster dominated the match.. he was just too good for Novacek. When I left the tribune I saw some people standing around one practice court.. I went there to see what was going on.. and whom did I see? Roger played a bit with Mirka I took a few pics and then went to the centre court and watched a few games of the first double SF..
Then I heard a woman next to me talking on the phone.. she said something like "..Rafa.. practice.. soon" and I was like WWRRRWHAT? RAFA?! WHERE?! I ran out and looked for him.. but did not see him so I watched ivanisevic and the three other guys who played a bit on the practice court.. and THEN.. I saw rafa's hair flying through the air on another court .I left the tribune and ran to the other practice court.. so fast.. I almost fell down.
I sat down in the first row and stared at him for about.. 20 minutes.. totally fascinated.. then I got out my camera and took tons of photos. It was amazing to see him real. When he finished and left the court there were soo many people trying to get his autograph, it was horrible.. I stood on some steps and took photos of that..
then I went to the centre court to see the match Roger vs. Carlos. 1st set was great but unfortunately Carlos didn't win.. and then it was Rafa time.
What can I say about the match? I think everybody saw it, no? 1st set was bad.. really bad.. and almost everybody cheered for Hewitt! But he improved in the 2nd set.. and the 3rd set was nailbiting - my hands were shaking.. it was horrible! I was soo relieved when he finally won the matchpoint.. then I listened to his little speech in his adorable English and after the match I left coz I already missed the train I wanted to take. I'll upload the pics later.

More pictures from Kimberly

Alexa
Translated by Anke from Alexa's post in our German language board
On Tuesday Rafa trained with Lleyton Hewitt. When I arrived at the training courts, I knew that he was there, also I still was far away. There was such a huge crowd of fans who were watching and it wasn’t that much space there. There was nearly no one at the other courts at the same time. Before that, when I watched the trainings there were always the same people at every court. Rafa was wearing a grey shirt and white shorts and a white baseball cap. The training took place for about an hour and the whole time there were coming more and more fans. Some kids were crawling through the shrubbery. I really don’t know how they managed to do it. Toni wasn’t at the training and Rafa didn’t look that happy during the training, but smiled and laughed sometimes. I think he took the training seriously. He was so nice tanned, but thinner than I expected. But I often had heared it that he is thinner in real than on the pics. But he looks much better in real life than in pics, thats for sure! One time he took his basball cap from his head and waved his hair like after a match. Big drooling moment!!!!! Anyway, Rafa and Lleyton then took the exit where no fans were waiting. And so all the kids started to run to this exit. They nearly race round me, really crazy. But I don’t know if they at least catched him.

On Wednesday then his match. Sure I didn’t missed a second of that, but therefore I was frozen to the marrow! (it was only 10°C!) I read that the wet conditions were hard for rafa, what I can totaly understand. During the match I saw Toni, but he was far away on the same site as I was sitting. Some people near to me, didn’t know much about Rafas habits and thought that his short was too tight and so he couldn’t play that well () But we know it better, no?! When he served for the first tiem I felt sorry for him. A “flood wave” of flash started, that you could get blind. The umpire said something about not using flash, but it changed nearly nothing.

After the match Rafa gave many autographs and threw some balls in the crowd. For sure you can remember when it looked like as if Rafa wanted to throw his racquet. He was so angry with the umpire. You don’t see him that angry very often, but he let a matter rest very fast. On Thursday I only bought a ground ticket, cause I had to catch my train at 5pm. I didn’t expected that Rafas match would be so early and I didn’t wanted to pay so much money only to see Federer. Bad luck But I saw Rafa in the players restaurant. You can see the players from outside. I don’t think thats a great idea, cause they can’t eat calmly. Some kids were there and watched him eating. Maybe they waited for him to come out again....