Lee Chong Wei

After a random drunk homeless man decided to practically knock our door down at 1AM, a lie-in was required. (I am aware that I potentially blog a little too much about sleep).

This is the door we walk out of. It spins.
This worries me.

We stayed in bed until about an hour before we were due at the NIA, but at least this avoided arriving at the Arena 3 hours early, and so a trip to find warmth in the ICC wasn’t necessary this time. We were given match numbers for the first few games on court, and I was match number 3, meaning that I had been allocated the Lee Chong Wei match. Booyah. After doing Lin Dan’s match at the Olympics, I am now pleased to have mopped for the golden duo and I feel like I am an accomplished mopper now. And, after careful comparison, I can now report that Lee Chong Wei is by no means as sweaty as Lin Dan is. I’m sure that fact has made a huge difference to your lives, you’re welcome.

Much to the amusement of the line judges,
I was given the task of guarding
the masking tape and
clipboard of power.

While I was walking off court from the men’s doubles, I realised that my team leader was madly motioning at me to run, so I overtook the queue of slowly-walking-serious-line-judges-and-umpires, and, in an on-court-off-court-on-court-rush reminiscent of the Olympics, practically knocking over half of the Chinese team on the way, I managed to Usain Bolt it to the tunnel for the next match on court: Tine Baun (who I may have sneakily requested to mop for this morning, just so that she was in good mopping hands en route to the final and all).

Tine (7^th seed) was playing the 5^th seed from Korea, and it was always going to be a close match. I was at the All England in 2008 when she (then Tine Rasmussen) won it and, as it’s her last tournament, I think that it would be fantastic to see her go out on a high, so I was Team Europe on this one (although, I mop in a totally unbiased fashion, please note). Tine didn’t start strongly and it was looking like she was going to be going out in straight sets, but she pulled through on experience to win the 1^st end 24-22, but then lost the 2^nd end 19-21 after being up at 11. And so it went to 3... At this point I was a nervous wreck for her sake (something which I obviously couldn’t display) and had to resort to sticking my fingernails into the palms of my hands to stop me hiding my head in my lap. This, when combined with the fact that I appear to have bruised the palm of my left hand on one of the mop’s screws yesterday, means that my left hand is not in an ideal state right now, but, have no fear, I will mop on (I know you’re secretly cheering). Anyway, as I’m sure the internet will tell you, Tine and her dress are in the final. As the internet will most probably not tell you (until now, that is), my mopping face faltered and I smiled. I don’t know how I feel about this. I can also exclusively report that Tine Baun is officially the least sweaty person I have mopped for. It may have been due to her long back-of-the-court-between-points-carpet-walking-sessions, but I am talking about not a drop of sweat. Not a drop. Too much information, I know.

Nope, I don't know what I'm doing either.

After the match I went up to the stands to watch the China vs. Denmark men’s singles with some friends. Coming from China, one of my moppers was obviously always going to be on team Chen Long. This did not bother me in the slightest, however, her over-enthusiastic-edge-of-seat-cheering, did panic me slightly and, as we were sat so high up, I had visions of her splatting onto the NIA floor after she wrongly estimated a jump-for-joy. Do not worry though, world, the mopping crew are unharmed and happy (China won).
 

Chilling where the big wigs chill.

When play finished there was a delay between the end-of-play and the reception for the volunteers, so we stayed around the arena floor and took some photos. It was at this point that I noticed the Danish head coach stood by himself, doing nothing. We had a brief mopping chat, and he said that he would speak to Tine’s coach about bringing a spare dress for yours truly. Shortly after, we relocated our photo session to the holding area for all technical officials and, it was at this point that Tine Baun, who had been having physio on the knock-up court round the corner, casually strolled past me. Although I am more than aware that you aren’t supposed to address players if you are lucky enough to have access to the same areas as them, I wasn’t exactly going to give the opportunity a miss or let her coach have the chance to forget, so I asked her if she would possibly have a spare dress after tomorrow’s final. And she said that she could arrange to. And that she would meet me backstage. And I am so happy. I just hope that it works, as I may have to mop for matches after hers, so don’t want to miss her! (To cover my back a bit here, as I would never ever ever normally try to address players or their coaches, both she and her coach were more than willing to speak to me, and I wouldn’t have asked them had I gauged the situation not to be appropriate).

The moppers then went to the reception for the volunteers, ate lots of brownies, and are currently doing everything that is needed to prepare for mopping at the All England finals tomorrow. As well as greatly enjoying the conversation that went on between my dad and Imogen Bankier on Twitter:

Court Maintenance

We spent the morning trying to find Chinatown and, after successfully doing so, with the help of one of my moppers acting as an interpreter to order my food, I ate dinner (I mean the meal at midday), before heading to the NIA. Our 3-hours-early-punctuality was apparently just a little too keen, and we spent the remnants of the morning making the most of the Wi-Fi in the ICC...

After seemingly instinctively analysing various mopping techniques yesterday, it was then time to whack out the mopping face and get my mop on.  Yesterday, I had noticed that a lot of the moppers had seemed to be hunched over, which I wouldn’t exactly class as an ideal technique, but, upon getting on to court, I realised that this was a technique pretty much unavoidable: the mop was about as tall as the distance between my foot and my knee! This was until one of the line judges next to me felt my mopping pain, took the mop off me and taught me the singularly most important lesson of my life: how to extend a mop. His extension of the mop was, in fact, slightly too enthusiastic and I was left with a mop about the height of me, but I mopped through the technical problems and spent the rest of the session extending every mop that I could get to.

I mopped for:
Xiaolong LIU & Zihan QUI vs. Mohd FAIRUZIZUAN & Mohd ZAKRY
Saina NEHWAL vs. Shixian WANG
Tontowi AHMAD & Lilyana NATSIR vs. Robert MATEUSIAK & Nadiezda ZIEBA
Markis  KIDO & Pia ZEBADIAH vs. Sudket PRAPAKAMOL & Saralee THOUNGTHONGKAM

All of the matches that I was on for seemed to be 3-set-marathons, and, as I hadn’t needed to do the sit-up-straight-in-the-mopping-chair since summer, I was clearly out of practice and within about half an hour my back was not loving life, and I was relishing the opportunity to be able to get up and mop because I could click my back on my way back to the mopping-chair! (Potentially too much information, I know).

The first match that I was on for was a very close 3-setter and the Chinese girl was very sweaty, which obviously made my life pretty exciting. She was also fairly shouty and, at one point, stared right through me and shouted in a way in which I can only describe as a bark. Although I have no doubt that she wasn’t actually looking at me, she unfortunately was staring right through my eyes, so I ish made eye contact with her before she did it. Hopefully the millions of viewers in China didn’t catch me visibly jumping up in my chair with shock...

The last match that I mopped for was probably the longest and, after the Thai pair (with very exciting long names, of course) thought that they had won in the 3^rd end, a fault was called and the Indonesian pair pulled back to win it. I was, as always, sat next to the coaches, one of whom seemed to take it upon himself to provide a running commentary on life in Thai, much to the amusement of the line judge next to me, who, I am assuming, vaguely understood at least some of what he was saying.

After today I am left with one lingering thought going into tomorrow: I am really not sure how I feel about the badminton-high-5. I preferred the good old days of the badminton-bum-tap.

I have news...

Coming soon to three badminton courts in Birmingham: me and my mop. Prepare yourself, 340 million global audience. And, if that wasn't enough for you, I am bringing with me two trainee moppers. Feel free to sit down with a cup of tea if that excitement is too much for you.