As Wimbledon reaches its climax, it remains the cradle of tennis. Some players, particularly male, lie broken in vain pursuit, but the show goes on.
Pomp and history separate Wimbledon from the other grand slam tournaments—the Australian in January, the French in June, the US Open in late August/September. One should never claim that one tournament is superior to the others, yet though some Americans claim differently, Wimbledon is where all this began.
Correction: The fortnight of tennis is, and since 1877 always was, “The Championships of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club”. By that token, the Scot Andy Murray competes here by invitation, along with the serene Roger Federer, and formerly the sublime Rod Laver, the feisty John McEnroe and the tenacious Rafa Nadal. Talent got them across the threshold to the lawns of Wimbledon.
So, too, the omnipotent Williams sisters, the refugee Martina Navrativolva, the pugnacious Billie Jean King. And, yes, All-England was willing on Johanna Konta, born and bred an Aussie, to prove that dear old England still has a woman to go the distance.
I should say, lady because Wimbledon’s style, its charm, still refers to gentlemen’s and ladies’ titles.
How quaint. You might say how backward given the shrieks that are most unladylike and the gamesmanship that is as welcome as an ingrowing toenail.
Yet the slams are distinguished in their different ways. The Australian Open in Melbourne Park, founded 1905, broils under searing hot sun and thrives on competitive gusto engrained in Australian sports.
The French, at Roland Garros club on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne since 1891, can seem as haughty as Wimbledon. But to my perception, France puts the game even more on a pedestal. The Parisian crowd synchronises with play in this grand and leafy setting.
Wimbledon has its royalty, its strawberries and cream, and still at times a snobbish air. Certainly an upper crust one. However Mark McCormack, the American lawyer who changed golf through his clients Arnie Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, taught the All-England the power of marketing.
The grandees grasped McCormack’s hand tighter than the grip on a racket. They needed to do so to match the 40-million dollars—over 3 million dollars to both mens and ladies champion—annual prize money.
Yet still Wimbledon preserves a degree of etiquette that the raucous US Open (founded 1881) makes no pretence at. New Yorkers makes no apology for their loud, brash, “audience participation” that players simply have to put up with, or lose.
If Wimbledon is like a persevered museum, New York is, well, New York. As loud as they darn well please, and the bottom line is that players must take the money and run.
New York’s energy could fire up an electricity grid. It is as different to Wimbledon as hotdogs and fries to strawberries and cream. Variety, they say, is the spice of life.
The four slams reflect cultural variation that, thank God, we can appreciate in a world gradually concreting over so many distinctive traits.
Could there be a fifth grand slam? Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, the Gulf States, even Africa might wish so. But with tennis back in the Olympics, and with the ATP and WTA mens and women's tours at saturation point, there is no time for more.
What breaks the muscles of leading players on the best of 5-set male circuit is not grand slams. It is the compulsion to play every dollar-drenched global tour event.
King Roger has stepped away from that obligation to preserve his limbs and lungs. He earned that exemption by being a throw- back, in skill and manners, to the ancient game now played on synthetic surfaces apart from Wimbledon.
Here, tradition still reigns. And a simple, appealing code requires ladies and gentlemen to wear pure white. The contrast, white against green, retains a globally aesthetic quality still pleasing on TV screens around the world.
It is clean, an age-old trademark, and a master stroke distinguishing the cradle that is still Wimbledon.