I absolutely love watching tennis on TV so Wimbledon is one of my favourite times of year. But in all my years of following the sport I have never seen anything like this:

Two-time Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal was handed a shock second-round defeat by world number 100 Lukas Rosol in a five-set thriller.

That was the headline 6 days ago after the relatively unknown Czech player astonished everyone including himself. He said, ‘I’m not just surprised but it’s like a miracle.’

It was a remarkable and arresting display of being in the zone. In the last set especially, Rosol was beside himself; he couldn’t contain his energy. Some of his shots were unbelievable; his timing was perfect. Commentators said things like, ‘When is he going to start thinking?’, and ‘Stop it!’ because it was flowing out of him.

What are some of the ingredients of a state like this? Here was a man doing what he loved, suddenly catapulted beyond his mind and his body and touched by grace. He was totally in the present, with no rerun from the past, ‘he always beats me’, or fear of the future, ‘can I really win this?’

Above all, he was venturing himself, giving everything to the game, and it was this giving that expanded him so that at times he even went beyond the laws of nature.

‘I played unbelievably today. I hope I can play another match like this. ‘ Even though Rosol lost in the next round he has the experience to point the way for himself, and millions of people got an unexpected and uplifting glimpse of creativity and vision at play.

Love, Sue