A first-round loser at Wimbledon this year will receive £23,000 for showing up. Back in 1957 I got £80 for losing in the singles qualifying draw and getting into the draws for the men’s doubles and mixed. Call it inflation, if you like, but today’s pros outside the top 100 need the moolah more than we did back then. I travelled with two Cubans, the Garrido brothers, and two Chileans, Pato Rodríguez and Potoko Aguirre. We lived at the Shelbourne Hotel in Earls Court, a grubby place that’s still around, and we paid £1 per week for a room without bath. On the Sunday before the championships started, I met a beautiful actress, Lisa G., who lived in Deanery Mews next to the Dorchester. I moved in for the duration and they were furious. When I brought her to the competitors’ section, my doubles partner, Wayne Van Voorhees, fell head over heels in love and threatened to pull out of the doubles if I remained possessive. All I can say, 56 years later, is he played his heart out for me.
Tennis was a wonderful sport when it was shamateur. We all travelled more or less together, and hung out in bunches. The top stars drank with the lowliest players, and the middle ranks did the same with their kind. Just like society, I guess. Mervyn Rose, who had won the Australian and was a perennial quarter finalist in all the majors, hit with me and drank with me. As did Ken Fletcher — we gambled everything we had and then some — as did the great Roy Emerson. All the girls were in love with Emmo but he only had eyes for Joy, his wife. That year Lew Hoad successfully defended his title by crushing Ashley Cooper, and I took him to the Milroy that night, using a friend’s name. No one recognised him and I charged the dinner and champagne to John Goulandris. (He claimed it 50 years later just before he died, and I refused to pay. He was, needless to say, a childhood friend.)
But enough nostalgia; let’s talk about the present state of the game. In my not so humble opinion, matches take much too long and that is so because of the trainers, strategists and other gurus who make a living off those sweating on the court. Somewhere along the line, during the early 1980s, some wise man figured out that a player concentrates better by taking his or her time between points. Typically, it has now deteriorated to the following: towel off, hand the towel back to the ball-boy and then wait for the balls. Examine all three, or sometimes four, of them, and return one or two. Then stare at the opponent à la Sharapova (my least favourite player along with Serena), not unlike Xerxes looking at the Attica plane before the drubbing he took at Salamis. Then, once ready, start tapping the ball. First with the racket, then bouncing it with the hand — sometimes as many as 11 or 13 times. Then, after missing the first serve, the whole rigmarole starts all over again. Nadal, of course, has even more of a ritual. Having done all of the above, he then pushes his hair under the bandana, scratches his backside, and finally is ready for action. Oh, for the days when players towelled off between odd games and the moment the point was over walked up to the service line and served.
The other thing I regret in today’s game is the lack of volleying by singles players. I’ve seen one of the greatest of them all, if not THE greatest, Roger Federer, swing at a ball below the net rather than punching it, a mistake that juniors didn’t commit yesteryear. Mind you, the game is now played from the back because of the technological revolution, so volleying helps but is not as important as attacking the ball early and swinging through.
Another thing that annoys is the non-stop chatter by commentators. The best one is Frew McMillan, a great doubles specialist and Wimbledon champion in his time, because he tries to emulate Dan Maskell in his understatement. Frew used to call me Dirk, as in Bogart, because he thought there was a physical resemblance. ‘That’s where it ends,’ I used to answer. Tennis really doesn’t need to be explained as very few blind people watch television. The American female speakers are the worst. They never shut up, and their voices are highly pitched and whiny. Urgh.
Which brings me to my final point, the shrieking by women, especially my two least-favourite players. Ironically, I stopped it in Greece a long time ago. A junior on the next court was emulating Tarzan and bothering me as my partner and I were winning the veterans doubles title going away. So I screamed at the top of my voice — louder than Tarzan — every time I touched the ball. Everyone started laughing, the referee came down and ordered us both to stop and that was it. I haven’t been back in 20 years, so by now the place must sound like a zoo, but for a while it was a proper tennis club.
Who will win Wimbledon? Easy. Djokovic or Murray, depending on the draw. Third choice Nadal, whose forehand on grass doesn’t force the opponent to hit it around his ears. If Murray had Nadal’s second serve I’d bet the farm. And Federer? No more. It has nothing to do with his game but with his and his opponents’ head. The other three no longer fear him, but he fears them, it’s as simple as that. That’s tennis.
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