Lynn News editor Jeremy Ransome asks: ‘Is Wimbledon as much fun as it used to be?’
Today, the Queen’s Tennis Championships starts in west London and will quickly be followed by Wimbledon, which keeps thousands of us Brits enthralled for two weeks.
Unlike football, rugby et al though, tennis is not a sport many of us follow all year round - instead, we become armchair experts once a year. That includes me.
We have our favourites who came back year after year, such as Novac Djokovic, Rafa Nadal and good old Andy Murray in the men’s game and the likes of Simona Halep and Petra Kvitova in the women’s side of the draw - but to me, it’s just not as exciting as it used to be.
Yes, I’ll watch it and no doubt be gripped by some new and exciting talent as I was when world number six Coco Gauff reached the fourth round as a 15-year-old in 2019 or when British wildcard Liam Broady pulled off a couple of wins last year.
But I’ll be watching mainly on my own again this year, whereas, growing up, it was a real family affair.
Me, my mum, dad and sister would all crowd around the box cheering on the stars of the Seventies and Eighties and, when we weren’t watching, we’d play outside on a small court my dad had chalked in the Park Avenue yard of our Lynn terrace.
I think the difference between now and then has to be the personalities involved.
Modern tennis has the machine-like brilliance of Djokovic, Nadal and countless women stars who seem to come, shine and go before I’ve had time to put a name to them. But back in the day we had front page headline-grabbing stars such as John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
Every family member had their favourite and the whole nation was divided over such rivalries.
My parents were so gripped in 1980 that they missed a St James Boys’ School parents evening to keep watching the Borg v McEnroe five set semi-final.
Borg went on to win his fifth and final title... and I escaped a roasting from my folks after a particularly ‘could do better’ term.