Anyone For Tennis? No?

With all this talk of the World Cup it is easy to forget that there’s a tennis tournament going on in SW19 – the most famous of them all, Wimbledon.

I was lucky enough to go along on Monday, to catch Roger Federer escape from two sets down and Laura Robson make her Centre Court bow. The sun was shining, the courts were pristine and lush and the crowds were replete with beautiful women. No doubt about it, it was a lovely day.

Yet for the first time in Wimbledon’s history there was not a single Englishman in the draw. I wondered if my visit to the All England Club could shed some light on this.

My trip there brought to mind John Betjeman’s poem, ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’:

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Tennis at the beginning of the twentieth century was a gentle pastime to be enjoyed before, as Betjeman did, you put on your fineries and attended the club dance. It was an elitist game for the upper middle classes. Has tennis changed all that much in Britain since these days? I would say not.

This is not to say that the upper-middle classes don’t make good sportsmen or somehow lack the determination to succeed at the highest level. No one could argue that, in the world of cricket, Andrew Strauss or Mike Brearley didn’t have sufficient mental strength to succeed at the highest level of their sport.

The problem is that tennis is only played by a limited number of people and, put simply, the bigger pool of players you have to choose from the more likely that you will develop world-class individuals. 

Wimbledon cements the elitist view of tennis. I was a member of a tennis club when I grew up which, similar to the All England Club, imposed a strict ‘All-White Clothing’ policy. I never liked it as it felt too regimented and did not allow me to express myself - I don’t believe it is a way of encouraging youngsters of playing the game. Roger Federer loves donning his all-white outfits when he comes to Wimbledon, but would he feel the same if he had to act in accordance of this rule for 52 weeks of the year?

Last year’s champions Federer and Serena Williams always speak fondly of the tournament – they love the quaintness and “very Englishness” of it but you feel they don’t revere British tennis. Due to the perception of the game in this country, Federer, as well as Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal could all have been lost to other sports if they were British.

The ATP Tour Finals were held at the O2 Centre last November and this was a step in the right direction with music blaring out between games and funky graphics giving the occasion a little razzmatazz. But more of this is needed to get tennis back on track in the U.K.

In my opinion tennis needs to be seriously rebranded in this country so that it is regarded as a game for everyone, and not just the highest echelons. Maybe then we would see an Englishman win Wimbledon. Otherwise the game will continue to be won by a foreigner, who, after collecting the trophy, will make his way back to a country where tennis is taken a lot more seriously.