How We Laughed At Wimbledon

As I watched the Wimbledon semi-final between Andy Roddick and Scotland’s Andy Murray, a wayward Roddick serve drifted across causing a line judge to take evasive action and dodge the ball fizzing towards him. He seemed fairly nonchalant about the whole incident, but the crowd’s badly stifled mirth at what they seemed to perceive as a “humorous incident.”

I’ve seen this before at Wimbledon, and I’m not sure if it a sign of the fairly simplistic sense of humour of the average Wimbledon attendee, or if that nervous giggle is the only decent release of the enormous and obvious sexual tension that pervades the court. If it wasn’t for this poor line judge and his emergency manoeuvres, I think the whole stadium would descend into an angry guilt-ridden orgy by the end of the third set.

To be honest, the humour bar is pretty low on Centre Court. What ranks as humour at Wimbledon makes The 40 Year Old Virgin look sophisticated and nuanced.

When I was a kid they would always show us the veterans' match between Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase. Handing over with barely controlled mirth, David Vine would chortle something about them being characters and that we should expect "fun and games." Inevitably this meant Nastase touching up a dog-ugly line judge, and Connors jumping over the net, to which the crowd would erupt into paroxysms of belly laughs.

While we’re on the subject of Centre Court oddities, why are there uniformed soldiers, sailors and airmen dotted around the place? It’s hard to say exactly what they are doing but they appear to be performing some sort of usher duties. Coincidentally, today they had one of the seven black soldiers in the British Army there while the cameras were turning! But surely we have more pressing duties for our Armed Forces than guiding people to the strawberry stalls. I know it’s not exactly Trident in the scheme of things, but I’m not sure this a good use of our defence spending.

Maybe we could leave it to the Chelsea Pensioners in the front row to do the ushering. About time they earned their pension.

Dancing In The Dark

Andy Murray came through last night's fourth round match but little Stan pushed him all the way. In the end, he won the fifth set and went through to the quarter-final after ten o'clock.

The late finish was facilitated by the new Centre Court roof, erected ostensibly to allow play to continue through the rain, but with a happy side-effect of allowing matches to continue beyond the twilight hours.

The first time the roof had been deployed in anger, you could be forgiven for thinking that the All England Club had invented electricity for the fuss made by the BBC.

Prime time tennis bumping Eastenders to BBC2 would not be possible without the twin assets of that roof and the most credible British player for a generation. But oh my lord, they did go on about it.
There were countless shots of the dark London skyline, and the working class people on Henman Hill. There were crow barred ad-libbed platitudes: "The city has shut up shop for the night, but here on Centre Court we're still very much open for business." There were incredulous statements of the obvious: "It's dark on the hill, but no-one's leaving. Who'd have thought we'd see the day..."

These unprecedented circumstances didn't stop John McEnroe criticising people for leaving early. Empty seats at the death were condemned as disgraceful, but I doubt he even knows where Leeds is, much less the train timetable for getting there after a day at the Tennis. I dare say he got back to his hotel with time to spare for a G&T before getting his head down.

At the end of the action, there was the most brilliantly sycophantic leading question I've ever heard as Gary Richardson stuffed his microphone under Andy Murray's nose: "What about playing under the roof and the atmosphere generally? It was FANtastic wasn't it?" What the hell was he expecting him to say?

The thing is that pretty much every other tournament in the world has a floodlit show court. Believe it or not, evening tennis is not that big a deal outside the gilded lawns of Wimbledon, but that wasn't going to stop the BBC from milking it.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what is added to the coverage by the super slow-motion replays of Judy Murray punching the air, face contorted with aggression and adrenaline. Frankly, it's terrifying - she looks like a ginger cyborg.

See you in the Quarters.


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