Wimbledon

Wimbledon has come to institutionalise an annual indulgence in a kind of English elegance. And that, more than the tennis, is what takes me there more or less annually; there’s tennis the game, and there’s Wimbledon.

Tennis played away from Wimbledon is a racquet game that exists in column space on the sports pages, or a slot in a sports bulletin. Wimbledon is an experience greater than the sport.
It’s that sport of the year when men are gentlemen, the women ladies. When they say “thank you” for “shut up.” When there’s real royalty around, and in a royal box at that. When strawberries and cream are an unofficial requirement. The gentleman that wins, and the lady, will take a prize each of a little more than a million dollars. That’s not the biggest purse in tennis; but then there’s no title in tennis like Wimbledon. It’s almost like the royalty in that box: they don’t have the most money, but they their titles count.

Tournaments these days are big, but only Wimbledon is quaint. I’m not much of a tennis fan, but I make my way there, and I absolutely suggest you do, because it seems so much less processed than those other tournaments all hardened by muscle and money, and on hard courts.
 Only Wimbledon gets played on grass, real grass, the way it was, right here, in the 19th century. It seems for that reason less processed, almost organically grown. Grass brings tennis down to earth, the politeness takes it back to an old world.

Perversely, if there’s one thing here I don’t like, it’s that televised showcasing of this kind of Englishness to the world; that charm too is on sale. It’s almost an advertisement for the way England used to be, and still can at least for some, and for some time.

But in that somewhat uppity suburb called Wimbledon, the charm is for real; even the tents that fans put up to queue overnight seem old-world. It’s the nearest you can get to the sporting ways of 19th century England, testing and drawing the very best skill in tennis today. Wimbledon is so much more than a quarter of a Grand Slam. You won’t just be going to a game, you’ll be walking into a metaphor for the gentle. After the way the Twenty20 went, God knows we both need to.