Keep the noise down at the back there - unlike Jonathan Overend, BBC Radio Five Live's commentator. We were out in the bowl that is Court no 2 at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre to watch the Murray brothers, Andy and Jamie, against the Canadian pairing of Frederic Niemeyer and Daniel Nestor, late last night and you could cut the tension with a knife.

Which was why Nestor and Niemeyer were a more than a little peeved that all they could hear was Overend's dulcit tones from the open-air commentary booth as he fed directly into Five Live's mainstream Olympics reports show. It started with a theatrical, "Shhhhhhhhhh", from Nestor that was followed a few minutes later by a slightly more threatening, "Shaddup!" as Overend came over all agitated at the prospect of a Murray victory and culminated with Niemayer firing a ball at the commentary position. That got the umpire involved, who was obliged to tell the Beeb's esteemed correspondent to pipe down.

If news gets back to the Beeb - and I am not telling - we fear the worst for Overend. No more tennis for him. It should be The Crucible and a bit of snooker next year for Whispering Jonathan Overend.

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The tennis centre is as spectacular as you would expect from this spend, spend, spend Games. The 10,000-seat Centre Court has some of the best spectator viewing I have ever seen on such a big court, while courts one and two are superb places to watch. Then there are seven more floodlit outside courts, which were running into the early hours of this morning. In fact, the Murray doubles didn't finish until gone midnight and their press conference was at about 12.30am, which meant late to bed for the brothers, who not only room together but also live together back home in the West End of London.

Given that tennis is China's fastest-growing sport, the Olympic Green centre is one of the venues that should be well used by the locals when the Olympic circus leaves town and Beijing grapples with how to get the best out of its massive, luxurious venues. I believe the term is "legacy".

Perhaps they could ask some opinions of the highly-trained executive who has a sign on his door at the tennis venue, for he resides in something described as the "pigeonhole supervisor's office". Pigeonhole supervisor. Hmm, I could do that. Could be a second string career in the offing.

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Roger Federer looked at ease after his first-round match, enough to giggle at himself when he tripped over the rule of interpreting at his press conference. The rule is: question asked in English, Chinese interpreter, er, interprets, Federer replies, Chinese interpreter again, everybody happy.

But Federer was so keen to speak, he intervened to answer the first question before the poor interpreter had a chance to have her go. "She speaks for me, no?" he asked, smiling, as she launched into her translation. One error was unfortunate, two is forgiveable but on the third occasion he butted in, even he decided he was struggling with the concept. "It always takes me three questions," he said. "But then I forget." And he did.

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Can't speak for the Chinese version, but the quality of the English translation by the Chinese interpreters appears to be excellent, beautifully grammatical and quite full with detail. How they cope with some of the questions and answers, though, I can't even imagine. Serena Williams can't get through a single sentence without it being littered with "I mean, you know". And some of the journalists are not much better.

With the benefit of a transcript, I present this rambler from one American hack to Federer for your consideration: "I thought I read somewhere that the ranking officially changes with the 11th. I could be mistaken. My question is: the time that you spent with Pete Sampras last fall on tour, I was wondering if the subject ever came up about when a player who has had tremendous success in winning Grands Slams gets to that point in their career where the ranking becomes less important than winning the big events, and, therefore, the focus shifts, whether" ... (bored yet?) ... "it's which tournaments you play, maybe even skipping the way Pete skipped a couple of Frenchies (eh?). Did you ever discuss that with him or if you've played it around in your head a little bit?"

Sampras had time for lunch during that one. And I couldn't even put that lot into concise English, never mind Mandarin.

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By the way, enjoying the whole thing at home? You have probably seen a lot more than me. We spend our days either ducking and diving to get to events on long bus rides, typing or closeted in the main press centre waiting for results to come in. We see single events but miss out on the big picture, so I am still to see Rebecca Adlington's magnificent gold medal swim or Tom Daley's disastrous diving.

The Chinese are not missing a trick. They tell me some High Street stores (do they have High Streets in China?) have seen a rise in the sales of high-definition televisions of 250 per cent as China switches on to its Olympics. They are loving it here, lapping up every second. There was even a huge crowd down at the shooting venue for the double trap pigeon shooting final today, ranging from old folk to kids, decked out in their red and yellow tee-shirts and chanting their local favourite, Binyuan Hu.

One last thing: I see from Hu's record that he is not only top-hole with a gun, but in 2004, he was named as the Chinese Model Labourer. Can't see him digging holes in the road somehow. Must mean something else ...