After all this time blogging here I've learnt that my posts on tennis don't get much attention, so I've been holding off writing about Wimbledon.

But spare a thought for the world Number 1 tennis player, lying beside his swimming pool in Majorca. Rapha Nadal (my favourite player of all time) is nursing a knee injury and unable to defend the Wimbledon singles title he won last year. Some reporters (probably to get headlines) have speculated that it's possible he will never to be able to play again.

Nadal has, though, had one huge, but hitherto unremarked, impact on professional tennis - that is on the post match Press Conference. He has abolished the adverb.

Tennis is one of the most international of sports, but it seems to be a requirement that you can answer interview questions in English - which must be Rapha's third language. Understandably he cuts some linguistic corners. "I played very aggressive, but he returned great."

And there's something catching about his style.

This Wimbledon I've noticed every single male player/interviewee - native English speaker or not and very much including Andy Murray - has abandoned adverbs for adjectives. "He played good." "He served phenomenol".

So English becomes slow but sure a world language.