It is the start of the English grass court season and, true to form, after one of the driest three months we have had for ages, the rain is now pouring down and it is cold and grey.
I have not been feeling too well this week so was glad to loll around on the sofa and watch the Aegon Championships at the Queen's Club. Everyone and everything is decked out in blue to go with the company's brand which is a vast improvement on the days when it was the Stella Artois championships and everything was in a shrieking pillar box red. A gift of a week as not only did Andy Murray make the final (he totally demolished Andy Roddick in the semis in under one hour - I have never seen him play so well), but we also had a Plucky Brit, ranked in the nether regions on the computer, also come through to the semi-finals knocking out two players in the top 20 and one in the top 50 in order to get there. Of course when this happens the tabloids latch onto it like a leech thirsting for blood and the whole thing was made even better as the player, Jamie Ward, is the son of a London taxi driver. Oh Gor blimey Guv this proves that tennis is not a game for the upper class drones in England but is for the proles as well. Throw in the fact that he has a cage fighter as a trainer/motivator and, well I need not go on - you get the picture. Of course, nobody thinks for one moment that tennis is for the proles, you just had to take a gander at the audience at Queen's Club with their Pimms and the braying Hooray Henry types watching the tennis in between texting and taking calls. Pippa Middleton was there fresh from her hard week of watching the French Open in the President's Box, who is now a true Sleb and it goes without saying that the Beeb zoomed in on her at every opportunity. No doubt she will appear in the Royal Box at Wimbledon in due course....
(You probably think I am being slightly satirical calling him a Plucky Brit but this is what appeared in at least one newspaper and not a tabloid either. I simply cannot imagine Nadal or Federer being called Plucky can you? It is a Brit thing)
Still, he really did well and I was most impressed with his playing and his general on court demeanour and he seems remarkably unfazed by it all. Considering he has spent the last few years on the lowly Challenger Circuit earning peanuts it was not surprising that his eyes lit up when he discovered that he was guaranteed a cheque for some £22k for this week's work. Of course, Sue Barker, John Lloyd et al were building him up big time and saying how he could go on from this and do well. We have all been there before. Every summer we have a Plucky Brit knocking out a top seeded player and then after all the hoo-hah collapsing the next day against somebody ranked 999 in Outer Mongolia. Let's be honest here, Tim Henman made a career out of it. I am probably being a bit unkind but the way these flashes of brilliance are seized upon by the sports writers in the summer is so predictable. They should know better by now that if you see the light at the end of the British tennis tunnel it is probably an oncoming train....
With all the rain delays there were lots of fill ins and the best one of all was an edited showing of the 2008 Wimbledon Final when Nadal beat Federer in five sets in one of the best tennis matches of all time. Of course, being the BBC they couldn't just leave it alone. Oh no. We had Rog and Raf reading out bits of Kipling's Poem 'If' which is above the door of the entrance to the Centre Court. Hugely embarrassing, cringe, cringe. And then the slow mo....this was just so uber cool in the sixties when it was first used but now is just old hat and yet it is welded to the hearts of sport producers. Yes, watching the balletic grace with which Rog plays in slow motion is beautiful but after he has pirouetted his way around the court dozens of times it gets a tad boring. And somebody really ought to mention to the Beeb that a slow mo of Rafa's sweat drenched hair swinging round his head with the perspiration flying of it and his mouth also wide open is, quite frankly, likely to put you off your dinner.
Best fill in was a feature all about Boris Becker and how winning Wimbers at age 17 changed his life and how he found it really difficult to handle and then all the appalling racial abuse he and his black wife Barbara suffered. I remember reading this at the time and they had to leave Germany and live elsewhere. He was also very honest and open about The Encounter in the Broom Cupboard at Nobo Club which led to a daughter being born some nine months later who he could not deny was his as she is his spitting image. Boris was very frank and humorous about his many mistakes and came across as a really nice guy.
Anyway, no matter how many times I know I will have to turn the sound off to avoid Pat Cash's witterings and mutterings and avoid a clearly uncomfortable MacEnroe trying to be positive when asked for the umpteenth time Do you think Andy Murray can win Wimbledon, I am looking forward to a fortnight of glorious tennis. I love it all and have done since I first stood on the Centre Court back in 1964 and watched Maria Bueno play Margaret Court. Yep, that dates me. I also saw John Newcombe, Roy Emerson, Fred Stolle, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Nastase, Connors...oh the roll call is a long one and I tell you that though I now watch it in the comfort of my home on my super duper TV, there is nothing so wonderful as being on the Centre Court in the evening at the end of a long hot summer's day (yes we did have them) and watch a mixed or a men's doubles being played out. Though the doubles was taken seriously and all the big names played them, unlike today, it was usually played in a more relaxed and friendly manner and the players would sometimes goof around and the crowd loved it. One marvellous moment I always remember, Newcombe and Roche were playing against Tom Okker (from Holland and known rather predictably as the Flying Dutchman) and his partner (whose name escapes me), when a ball came back to them. N & R both shriekd MINE rushed to hit it, crashed into each other and fell over flat on their backs, somehow managing to get the ball back over the net, whence Tom and his partner also shriekd MINE rushed towards it and also crashed into each other. I think it is the only time I have seen four tennis players flat on their back on the Centre Court.
Ah, happy days...........
