Rhys on Wimbledon

 RHYS BOWEN: I don’t know about you but for the past two weeks I’ve been glued to the TV watching Wimbledon. Weren't the finals splendid this year, especially the men's doubles? 

I have always been a huge tennis fan, a tennis player too until an extruded disc between my shoulder blades put a stop to that. So Wimbledon is a big treat for me.

When I mentioned that I had attended Wimbledon in person Hank said I should blog about it. So here it is:

I became a tennis fan at a young age. I think I was given a racquet when I was eight.  My school had 3 hard courts and 12 grass so of course we played a lot f tennis. I also belonged to a club and played there after school. My friend Mary and I both had crushes on the Aussie tennis stars: Lou Hoad, Ken Rosewall, John Newcomb, Rod Laver. We had pictures of them on our walls. We watched them on our black and white TVs and once a year we went to see them in person at Wimbledon. I don’t remember but I think we must have played hooky from school because I don’t think we always went on Saturdays, in fact I’m sure we didn’t. We’d buy grounds passes, which in those days were easy to get and very cheap. During the first week there were always fantastic matches going on outside of the show courts. Also when people left centre court they’d give their seats to kids like us, so we saw all the greats play.

A bit older, as a college student and then as a working woman, I went with a date. We ate strawberries and cream, (which in those days were served from glass dishes, not plastic ones) and we drank Pimms. It was all so civilized.

Today if you want a grounds pass you’d better be lining up at dawn, or maybe all night, hoping you’ll be one of the lucky ones let into the grounds. If you want a seat on Centre Court or Court One you apply to a lottery and you have to take what you get—so maybe not the matches of your choice.  I feel really blessed to have grown up in a simpler time!

My latest Wimbledon experience was at the 2012 Olympics when I put in for three days of tennis AND got all three!  Fabulous! We had grounds passes for the quarter finals so we were able to watch some big names playing on other than the show courts. We were yards away from the Williams Sisters (who are much slimmer than they seem on TV). I walked along a narrow path with John Isner. It was like looking up at a tree. (He is 6’ 10!)

And we had the show court for Nadal, Andy Murray, and then watched Federer ,sitting with others on Henman Hill. Such a great experience. The only thing lacking was the food and drink. No elegant dining rooms any more. A sausage roll on a paper plate. Ah, signing for the good old days!

What makes Wimbledon so special and unique is the traditions that surround it: the players all have to wear white, and how nice that looks! The surface is a manicured green lawn. When a royal person is in the royal box the players stop to curtsey or bow when they come out. And until recently they were addressed as Mr. Nadal, Miss Williams. Now that’s gone, along with the glass bowls for the strawberries. But they still have the lovely purple and green towels, which I covet!

But there is still the aura of civility about the sport. IN which other sport do you wait until the opponent is ready before you serve? And wait until the crowd is quite silent? And the umpire chides noisy spectators with. “Ladies and gentlemen, please…”.  Can you imagine that at a football game?

I hope to return again some day but in the meantime there was fantastic coverage on the HD channels and I woke at 5 every morning to watch!  How about you? Any tennis fans out there?