Here we go: two weeks of wall-to-wall coverage of the sport for people who hate sport. The most boring game ever invented, played by the most boring athletes, watched by the most boring audience, interpreted by the most boring commentators.
In case the penny hasn’t dropped, I am of course describing Wimbledon, the only sporting occasion at which the most controversial issue is the cost of strawberries, and the only major competition in which key analysis focuses on the decibel count of female players hitting the ball.
Nothing exemplifies better how Wimbledon is the sporting contest for people with no interest in sport than ‘Henman Hill’, a patch of grass on which tennis fans congregate to eat a picnic while the actual sport takes place somewhere else.
And nothing better illustrates the intrinsic dullness of the sport itself – watching two people swat a ball – than the fact that the most exotic element of the entire thing is the scoring system.
It used to be that British players at Wimbledon were a microcosm of Britain their country: competetive but with zero chance of success. Then Andy Murray came along – an outstanding athlete who refused to conform to the Tim Henman model of nice but essentially useless. And how did the tennis crowd respond to having an actual winner in their midst? The were horrified by his inability to conform to the accepted gentlemanly model of behaviour, for wearing his competitive heart on his sleeve, for being, as they put it, moody. For being, in other words, the type of character who actually wins things. See what I mean about the sport for people who don’t like sport?
Now they have Emma Raducanu all is well with their world and back to the status quo ante. Clearly talented – she did win the US Open, after all – she is now, however, the archetypal British tennis player: a talented loser. And they love her all the more for it.
Because the tennis crowd is the worst aspect of the sport. Is anything more cringe than the squeaks of ‘Come on Emma’ as their heroine prepares to lose another point? Is anything more representative of a sport for people who hate real sport than having a built-in tea break after every second game?
Tennis is, at root, a ‘social sport’
Tennis is, at root, a ‘social sport’ – where you join a club to play with your friends, and spend more time worrying about the state of the cucumber sandwiches than how you can defeat your opponent. And Wimbledon is the apotheosis of that – a social occasion where the sport is merely the backdrop to the strawberries and cream tea. Real sport is about passion, and is far removed from tennis’s ‘Oh go on, I’ll be naughty and force one more strawberry down’.
In that context, my favourite aspect of Wimbledon is its perfect example of sporting newspeak: the All England Club which runs the tournament. Tennis is about as far removed from All England as it is possible for a sport to be. Don’t bother if you’re not ‘one of us’; you won’t get a look in. Which, from my perspective as someone who would rather spend all day in a darkened room than have to endure a minute in the company of a tennis obsessive, is a small mercy for which I am thankful.
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