Getting to the nub of it
No doubt like many Rusters I have been enjoying my periodic dips into the BBC’s consistently excellent radio and television coverage of Wimbledon 2017.
Call me old-fashioned, or Neanderthal – or even cod-nostalgic for the days of the British Empire that stretched across the quarter of the Earth’s land surface and peoples if you wish – but even from the first transmissions of the trailers and preview programmes I have been comforted (amidst life’s inevitable ongoing travails) in the reminding that some things never seem to change and thankfully this little old annual tournament in SW19 is one of them.
From the moment you see the purple [is it purple?], green and white logo with the word ‘The Championships’ above the circle and ‘Wimbledon’ below it, the average Brit can sense that all is well with the world, despite the latest antics of the Maybot, Momentum, Trump and the Beckhams.
A reassuring feeling of innate and patriot ‘above it all’ superiority somehow envelopes one’s drawing room.
In my own case, I like to enhance the atmosphere chez nous by imagining myself to be a middle-ranking member of the US Senate or House of Representatives – resting for an hour from lobbying hard for the impeachment of the incumbent President – who tunes in to the television coverage of the only Major tennis tournament played on grass and appreciates yet again that there is nothing in the world to match it. Certainly not the US Open.
And you know what underpins it all? Something as simple and straightforward as the fact the player dress code – as ever – is white.
All around the remainder of the calendar, whenever by chance you catch snatches of say the Madrid Open, or the Abu Dhabi Classic, or the US Open on some satellite/cable channel, the players – wearing outfits in the Mickey Mouse-style colours of the rainbow – resemble nothing more than virtual walking advertisement boards playing hit-and-giggle tennis on the municipal pay-per-play courts behind a pub on Putney Common.
They could literally be anywhere.
But when Wimbledon come around they all have to present themselves as proper tennis players, i.e. in white.
And, thankfully, whatever their general personal degree of ‘Who gives a toss?’ attitude to officialdom, authority, local sensibilities, or even the ball boys and girls – these over-paid, over-hyped, drama queen elite exponents of the game have meekly to comply.
They probably joke about ‘British quaintness and old-fashioned lah-dee-dah snobbery’ when they get back to their five star luxury hotel or rented mansions on Wimbledon hill before the starter courses arrives at small dinner parties with their mates … but they all go along with it.
And so they should.
The day before yesterday I had watched the thrilling Johanna Konta three-set Ladies’ quarter-final victory over Simona Halep – it was a superb match and terrific television, just like Gilles Muller’s earlier vanquishing of legend Rafael Nadal.
Konta has been making great strides in the not-always-smooth transition from a general “And who the %”&*@£! hell is she?’ recognition factor among British fans (at the point when she suddenly became a British citizen in 2012) to “Our Jo” – a bona fide National Treasure, now on course one day to get an OBE, a possible dame-hood … and then the final accolade anyone in the UK can possibly aspire to, a celebrity spot on Strictly Come Dancing.
The fact prompted me to reflect on such things last night before going to bed.
In the wider context, being a sports fan and as a general principle, I want to see the best players of all strut their stuff on the biggest stages in this 21st Century globalised world – the Olympics, the World Cups, the big championships – and to hell with nationality.
Kevin Pietersen
And yet, simultaneously, as a Brit I also want to support my own guys and gals.
Does it really matter when the likes of the South Africans Zola Budd, Basil D’Olivera or Kevin Peterson … the Canadian Greg Rusedski … or any of those athletes of various nations suddenly pop up with technical British nationality just in time for the next Olympics or other major events?
Perhaps up to a point, Lord Copper.
We all know that Andy Murray somehow slipped through the British tennis youth development net (or was actually it took himself off to Spain in despair as a callow teenager in order to toughen himself and become a world contender?).
And yet we’re also all aware of hacked-off Brits who get pushed out when sportsmen and women from other nations suddenly discover a long-lost maternal grandmother, or by chance get granted asylum by the British authorities, and thereby usurp a place in Team GB.
Does it matter that Jo Konta is really an Australian by origin? Or that for nigh on seventy years no male British tennis player was world class enough (let’s leave “Come on Tim!” Henman out of this) to become a genuine Wimbledon contender?
There have always been athletes of outstanding quality who, via accident of birth, were destined never to grace the biggest tournaments of all – step forward footballers George Best of Northern Ireland and Ryan Giggs of Wales, to name but two of many.
On balance, as a sports fan, my desire to see the very best compete with each other – from whatever origin – somewhat overrides my intrinsic sense of patriotism and nationalistic fervour.
Would Konta have got to where she is – stepping out on court this afternoon to play Venus Williams for a chance to appear in the 2017 Wimbledon Ladies’ Final on Saturday – if she’d remained an Aussie?
I guess we shall never know. And maybe it doesn’t matter. After all, if she justifies her ranking of 5th in the world … and then has a shot at becoming Wimbledon champion … who cares?