High life | 24 January 2019

Asked how he was feeling as he was about to give a speech to a ladies group, Mark Twain, looking stricken, is supposed to have said: ‘How do you expect me to feel? Shakespeare is dead, Goethe is dead, and I have a terrible cold.’Alas, I’m no Twain, but I feel worse than the Mississippi sage ever did — that I’m sure of. Going cross-country skiing underdressed in bone-chilling temperatures didn’t help. I now sneeze about 150 times a day, I’m aching all over, my nose is running as if I had shoved two ounces of Peruvian pure up it, and my head feels as though it is stuffed with poisoned marshmallows.

So, last Sunday, unable to read, I decided to improve my mind by watching television, the invention that has made western man a superior human being. Believe it or not, the horrible device brought back some very pleasant memories: 4, 6 and 7 May 1967, to be exact. I went to the guest loo to check the date and have a look at the picture hanging on the wall. There we were, the four of us, in our blazers and tennis shorts, under the heading Coupe Davis, and beneath our picture in enlarged letters: Suisse–Grèce, Parc des Eaux Vives, Genève.

The reason for this trip to yesteryear was the Australian Open Federer–Tsitsipas match late last Saturday, one that the Greek won in four sets to cause one of the greatest upsets in tennis. I watched the whole four hours, something I have never done before, not even when I was on the tour and friends were playing.

Which makes it 52 years since a Greek beat a Swiss in tennis, although the 1967 Greek triumph was not exactly kosher.