Wimbledon Tales

As Andy Murray broke the serve of Stanislas Wawrinka in the second set to bring himself right back into today’s fourth round match, a small red flash at the bottom of the screen told us everything we needed to know about how Britain has taken young Murray to its collective heart… “Eastenders is on BBC Two.”

When you are relegating Ricky and Bianca to the second channel, you know you’ve arrived. As with most sporting events, the television coverage is what fascinates me most and the BBC have really thickened the gloss on their presentation.

There are ultra-slow motion replays of feet skipping across the court that almost audibly scream at you to buy an HD television, there are all the red-button shenanigans that make the four remaining analogue TV watchers shudder with fear, there are the first rate roster of presenters – from the fragrant Sue Barker to the grizzled John Inverdale. And then there are the pundits.

The BBC have not scrimped on their pundit pulling this year. As well as the impeccable John McEnroe, still sharing his time between the beeb and the American broadcaster ABC, there is the return of Tim Henman after last year’s largely forgettable debut. On the radio they have Michael Stich, alpha-maling Simon Mayo around the studio and flattening his Teutonic vowels across the action.

Post match discussion appears to be conducted on some exotic roof garden high above the union flag-clad morons, and, despite all the logical reasons ranged against it, continues to involve Pat Cash.

Cash, even at the age of 44, is still persisting with that ridiculous cross dangling from his left ear. I suppose to get rid of it now would be an admission of guilt and, since he shed his trademark chequered headband, he’s probably worried that no-one would recognise him without the Bryan Adams hair cut and the Limahl ear ring.

On Five Live, they are dragging way too much mileage from a shoddy feature called Tarango and Cash – see what they’ve done there? This involves Jeff Tarango and Pat Cash generally being loud and obnoxious and talking to the public whilst I put on a CD. Quite a stroke of luck for Tarango though – best known for forfeiting a match at Wimbledon for continuous, unrelenting and sustained swearing, you wouldn’t have thought that would have been the perfect CV for a career in broadcasting. But Pat Cash is a champion, he’s already on the payroll, and a clever-sounding name trumps content. Ladies and gentlemen, Tarango and Cash.

Greg Rusedski, who is still maintaining this charade of being British despite now being allowed to speak. When he was playing he could get away with it as we could suspend reality and take him to our bosom, but as soon as he opens his mouth I just want to throw an ice skate at him. To be honest, it’s hard not to like him. Knocking Rusedski is like shooting a baby deer. When he’s asked his opinion, he looks like a kid who has been given a lolly. With his toothy grin and big eyes, he seems to have no other thought in his head.

With all these former champions in the commentary box, and Tim Henman, I find myself annoyed by the inferior players who have the nerve to give their opinion. It’s curious that I am quite happy to listen to the opinions of a journalist on the exploits of top sportsmen, and yet I have such contempt for so-called expert pundits whose expertise never got beyond being ranked inside the top 200 in the world.

When I hear Andrew Castle suggest what might be going through Andy Murray’s head in a pressure situation, I do wonder what the hell he knows about pressure situations. The closest he ever came to a pressure situation was trying to get out of the way of Pete Sampras’ serves in the first round at Wimbledon.

As I finish this blog, Murray is two sets to one up and looking strong.

“Panorama is on BBC Two.”