How Kyrgios saved Wimbledon

What separates this year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal from every other year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal? Wimbledon has always been a garden party with some tennis thrown in, attended by the least sports-driven crowd in existence – the matrons of Guildford and Godalming who manage to love Rafa and Andy for a fortnight, but not much longer, and whose need for a punnet of strawberries and cup of tea at around 4 p.m. is eternal. And for whom it’s funny if the ball hits the umpire’s chair.

Wimbledon is half a tennis tournament and half the last redoubt of a disappearing England. Certainly the BBC saw the centenary of the centre court and the departure of Sue Barker as an excuse to make its coverage more syrupy than ever. Each year Sue has looked more and more as though she has just been helicoptered in from a garden party in the Home Counties.

Some senior honchos at the All England club are known to be slightly anxious about the unchanging, er, demographic of the Wimbledon faithful. So thank heaven for Nick Kyrgios: otherwise it would just have been business as usual – a few good matches and then Novak Djokovic wins. At least with Kyrgios there, Prince George, who is rapidly resembling Britain’s smallest estate agent, expanded his vocabulary.

Were reports of the imminent death of northern hemisphere rugby overblown? After all four home nations scored victories on foreign turf, the scene is set for some stupendous rugby this weekend, with the four series settled on the same day. As long as not too many players are hauled off to the infirmary, that is. After just two games between Australia and England, nine Wallabies and four England squad players have been ruled out because of injury.