It’s Wimbledon again. Aside from my usual ‘Hope you’re enjoying it’ message to Paul (along with a funny pic of William Hague this time), I once again find myself very much liking tennis - for the usual two weeks, while players in white thwack a yellow tennis ball around a green court.
It’s so posh isn’t it. I mean it’s ties and jackets rather than bucket hats and beer glasses. It has a royal box like a theatre, and polite applause instead of chants and bawling. Sammy asked me if I’d ever want to go…
“Possibly,” I said. “I did take Luke to the tennis that time.”
That was the indoor ATP finals. I won tickets in a competition. I have a feeling Wimbledon would be a lot more fancy than the O2 Arena. Plus, we quickly calculated, it would cost us more than our holiday.
It’s not just posh though; Wimbledon’s nostalgic too. I think however old we are, we all have memories of coming home from school and watching tennis. I saw Boris Becker like that. And Pete Sampras. And Roger Federer (though admittedly, he was more post-university). And despite the rebuilt Court No.1 and the retractible roofs, somehow the deep emerald green of the All England Lawn Tennis Club is exactly as always it was.
Speaking of the retractible roof, I watched it last night. The BBC broadcast eight minutes of it closing - eight minutes of air time on a mechanical roof! The crowd cheered, the slit of pink sky grew narrow between the rafters, and very delicately, very quietly, the two halves of the impressive Centre Court roof clicked together above the tennis court. Beautiful.
I like things like that. I like figuring out how it works. The camera zoomed in on the slowly turning wheels moving along their track. Essentially the roof closes just like a pair of curtains! How much weight do those wheels pull behind them, and how are they powered? What regulates their speed?
The players emerged, carrying their tennis bags back out on court. Applause. The umpire announced a two minute warm-up, and quickly we were back to white, yellow and green.
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