The title must tell you that I have developed severe contempt for this tournament, this year’s edition coming upon us shortly. As with the French Open, I have many reasons to hate Wimbledon, and to start, its conceit.
Why did I not title this post I hate The Championships? I did not want to feed their conceit. Note that the tournament calls itself The Championships. The logo proclaims it so. If you googled the phrase, you are directed to the official site of the tournament. This could only mean that conceit pervades the tournament. You may, though I do not, tend to excuse this snobbery if you noted that the British Open golf championship is called merely The Open. Cousins in conceit, shall we dub the duo?
While Wimbledon justifiably claims to be the oldest tennis tournament in the world, the shine comes off just a little bit when you realize that the host is The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. And to boot, the original club was a croquet club and lawn tennis was an add-on, a late comer; not necessarily Landed Gentry you would agree. It becomes harder to justify the turned up nose.
The one word that you would tire of hearing even as the broadcast starts is “Tradition”. For heaven’s sake, what “tradition” are they talking about? Oh, it could be the charade of the award ceremony when the Duke and Duchess of Kent speak in private with the ball boys and ball girls (this has been stopped for some time now, breaking the tradition)!
Or, are they referring to the fact that the grass has remained green, has not turned flaming pink or something? If you want to know, there were years in which the dry summer had caused the grass courts to resemble an over-grazed land, so bald it was at the end of the first week. Or, is it that the players are forced to wear predominantly white clothes? I just finished watching French Open and it almost looked like the women players were not wearing anything! So, the Brits, by insisting on white, are merely proving themselves to be prudes!
The one tradition that seems to have sustained itself over a century is the strawberry and cream eating compulsion. Thankfully, I hate strawberries!
I will tell you the items in which Wimbledon violated “tradition”. When an American TV network dangled millions of dollars in its face, the tournament shifted its Gentlemen’s Final to a Sunday; Oh! My God, playing on the Sabbath, as Eric Liddell taught us in the movie Chariots of Fire. What sacrilege!
It adopted yellow balls, casting away the traditional white. Why then their insistence on whites as players’ attire? Bring on yellow, pink, blue, green, burgundy, baingani (purple), whatever!
Wimbledon was brought kicking and screaming to erect a retractable roof; of course, only when rain delays became near certain, given the reality of AGW (the ongoing Champions Trophy is proof enough). This ain’t no tradition.
Wimbledon’s hypocrisy was all too evident when it went against its own tradition, and did not offer the membership to the winner, John McEnroe in 1981. The club did not take the two lines of a poem by Kipling,
“…meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”
which hangs at the entrance to the players’ room, to its heart. It acted spitefully, claiming that McEnroe was not a gentleman. Well, we have come to expect such behavior from the Brits, haven’t we?
That gets me to John McEnroe. If you haven’t seen the classic 1984 Wimbledon finals between him and Jimmy Connors, you have not seen tennis at its best. But, more relevant to this post is how the grass court was shorn of grass by the time the finals rolled around. And, you had to be a master to handle all that uneven bounces. And, McEnroe was. And, where McEnroe was the king, Martina Navratilova was the queen! Those were the heydays of lawn tennis, true to its name.
I have been watching half hour long snippets of Wimbledon tournaments of the first decade of this century, over the past week or so and what strikes me the most is this fact: The service 'T' area has grass on it during the finals. Yuck, this ain’t no grass court tennis.
Therefore, all said and done, I hate Wimbledon because it has stopped being a grass court tournament.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Why did I not title this post I hate The Championships? I did not want to feed their conceit. Note that the tournament calls itself The Championships. The logo proclaims it so. If you googled the phrase, you are directed to the official site of the tournament. This could only mean that conceit pervades the tournament. You may, though I do not, tend to excuse this snobbery if you noted that the British Open golf championship is called merely The Open. Cousins in conceit, shall we dub the duo?
While Wimbledon justifiably claims to be the oldest tennis tournament in the world, the shine comes off just a little bit when you realize that the host is The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. And to boot, the original club was a croquet club and lawn tennis was an add-on, a late comer; not necessarily Landed Gentry you would agree. It becomes harder to justify the turned up nose.
The one word that you would tire of hearing even as the broadcast starts is “Tradition”. For heaven’s sake, what “tradition” are they talking about? Oh, it could be the charade of the award ceremony when the Duke and Duchess of Kent speak in private with the ball boys and ball girls (this has been stopped for some time now, breaking the tradition)!
Or, are they referring to the fact that the grass has remained green, has not turned flaming pink or something? If you want to know, there were years in which the dry summer had caused the grass courts to resemble an over-grazed land, so bald it was at the end of the first week. Or, is it that the players are forced to wear predominantly white clothes? I just finished watching French Open and it almost looked like the women players were not wearing anything! So, the Brits, by insisting on white, are merely proving themselves to be prudes!
The one tradition that seems to have sustained itself over a century is the strawberry and cream eating compulsion. Thankfully, I hate strawberries!
I will tell you the items in which Wimbledon violated “tradition”. When an American TV network dangled millions of dollars in its face, the tournament shifted its Gentlemen’s Final to a Sunday; Oh! My God, playing on the Sabbath, as Eric Liddell taught us in the movie Chariots of Fire. What sacrilege!
It adopted yellow balls, casting away the traditional white. Why then their insistence on whites as players’ attire? Bring on yellow, pink, blue, green, burgundy, baingani (purple), whatever!
Wimbledon was brought kicking and screaming to erect a retractable roof; of course, only when rain delays became near certain, given the reality of AGW (the ongoing Champions Trophy is proof enough). This ain’t no tradition.
Wimbledon’s hypocrisy was all too evident when it went against its own tradition, and did not offer the membership to the winner, John McEnroe in 1981. The club did not take the two lines of a poem by Kipling,
“…meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”
which hangs at the entrance to the players’ room, to its heart. It acted spitefully, claiming that McEnroe was not a gentleman. Well, we have come to expect such behavior from the Brits, haven’t we?
That gets me to John McEnroe. If you haven’t seen the classic 1984 Wimbledon finals between him and Jimmy Connors, you have not seen tennis at its best. But, more relevant to this post is how the grass court was shorn of grass by the time the finals rolled around. And, you had to be a master to handle all that uneven bounces. And, McEnroe was. And, where McEnroe was the king, Martina Navratilova was the queen! Those were the heydays of lawn tennis, true to its name.
I have been watching half hour long snippets of Wimbledon tournaments of the first decade of this century, over the past week or so and what strikes me the most is this fact: The service 'T' area has grass on it during the finals. Yuck, this ain’t no grass court tennis.
Therefore, all said and done, I hate Wimbledon because it has stopped being a grass court tournament.
Raghuram Ekambaram
5 comments:
It's nice to see that you can afford to hate so many things at this age of yours, Raghuram.
I'd prefer strawberry to tennis or sports of any sort, for that matter.
I'm a practical person when it comes to business (though businessmen always cheat me, I feel - a feeling which my wife endorses). I wouldn't bother about the evolution of the Wimbledon really...
As much convoluted Wimbledon has become I only wish it evoluted (???), Matheikal. It is an anachronism and its tennis too. Just imagine watching an ODI cricket match being played on a hockey field!
Would you like cream with your strawberry, sir? Imagine I had put on a fake English accent!
By the way, this is my "I Hate" series :)
When the US Open tennis tournament looms, I would things to hate that also. But, I have a soft corner for that tournament and I may have to work hard!
RE
I love Wimbeldon or The Championship just for the nostalgia it invokes. It also happens to be the favorite hunting ground of Boris Becker, whom I adore till date
That is fine, Balu ... Diff'nt strokes for diff'nt folks ... There is a whole lot of snobbery behind this "tradition"Wimbledon seeks to invoke ... The Brits' nostalgia of who they were is nauseating to me.
RE
I just read what Peter Sampras said about Wimbledon:
"... it's sad to see Wimbledon with everyone staying back"
So, finally even the seven times champion, not a natural serve-and-volleyer, finds Wimbledon not a grass court tournament but a tournament played on grass. This, unfortunately for Sampras,comes years after Martina Navratilova said the same thing, which in itself was after yours truly put down his thoughts along the same lines.
Hooray for me!
RE
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