Tennis
Champions
Harry Eyres
On arrival at the press office beneath the stands of the Centre Court, I presented myself rather diffidently to the Wimbledon Press Officer, Mr Richard Berens. Spectator tennis correspondent even if I was, as the editor assured me, 'accredited' — sounded unconvincing, espe- cially when not in the person of a certain former Greek Davis Cup player. But Mr Berens seemed to know exactly who I was: 'Ah, you're John Stewart Collis's replace- ment. Best writer on tennis in the English language. He used to pitch a tent down by Number One Court, you know. Eccentric old twit, some people thought, but I knew he was worth it. He always produced a perfect gem. I hope you're as good as he was, because if you're not, I'll have a word with the ATTP.' In case I was feeling over-confident, he added, fixing me with a beady stare: 'And of course he used to play here himself, in the Twenties.' With more of a twinkle he then handed me my very own emerald (Centre Court) green imita- tion suede Special Souvenir Press Briefcase Kit, which would tell me all I needed to know, and showed me round the well- irrigated press area. Most of the journalists who were not at the various water-holes seemed to be concentrated in the Press TV Monitor Room, gazing at five TV screens, one of them showing the Test match. I also gazed, until the mercurial Mr Berens inter- vened: 'Well, do you want to see some tennis, or do you just want to sit here and
watch television? That's all most of them do, but if you want to do that, you might as well stay at home.' No, no, I assured him, I was most anxious to see some tennis, and so a few moments later I found myself in the Centre Court Press Box watching a ladies' single between Kathy Jordan, seeded sixth, and the (this year) unseeded Virginia Ruzici.
I sat for a while entranced by the atmosphere, the feeling of being outside and yet enclosed, with an expectant crowd, in a great open-air sporting theatre (Lord's, on an even larger scale, has the same feeling), in other words the reality of live sport after so many hours sitting stuffily in front of the box. Television simplifies and distorts without seeming to, especially those games which fit as neatly on to the screen as tennis and snooker. The Centre Court, like the snooker table, is so much bigger than it appears on television, the game so infinitely more difficult, from the players' angle, than it looks from the God's-eye view of the BBC cameras; above all, the players are much better than you realise. Indeed, so good were Miss Jordan and Miss Ruzici, so athletic and so strong even on their weakest shots, that it seemed amazing that anybody could be much better. I turned for elucidation to my Press Kit, which contained the 1984-85 WTA Media Guide. I learned that both girls stand 5ft Bins, weigh about 130 pounds, and earn about a thousand times the amount they weigh in prize money in a year. Miss Ruzici, in fact, who comes from Rumania, the country which has decided to participate in the Olympic Games, has earned more than a million dollars in prize money in her career. No wonder the Media Guide comments that she is noted for her 'extremely hard forehead'.
There is a special reason for concentrat- ing on the ladies this year, because it is the centenary of the first Ladies' Cham- pionship held at Wimbledon. To mark this occasion, a parade of Lady Champions was held on the Centre Court on Monday. Things have changed a little since the oldest among them, but still the most elegant curtsier, 88-year-old Mrs Kitty Godfree, won her two Singles titles in 1924 and 1926, and not least the prize money. 'A five-guinea prize voucher, which at that time was on Mappin & Webb - that was all I received,' she recalls in a wonderfully sprightly and articulate interview given to Tennis World. This year the winner of the Ladies' Singles receives £90,000. But Mrs Godfree's perspective is so long and true that she accepts all the changes. 'The world's changed, it's not only sport that's changed, everything's changed and there- fore sport has changed with it. I think it's just as exciting, and I believe the tennis has got better and faster.' She ought to know.
One thing which has surely improved is the strength in depth of the women's game. The great champions of the past - as was shown by the extraordinary pieces of foot- age interspersed with the Lady Champions' parade - were as full of talent as their successors, and, being less muscle-bound, more graceful, but there were few if any to challenge them. Now it is very different, as the 1977 Lady Champion will be ruefully aware. Virginia Wade was beaten in the third round by a young Swede with flaxen hair and a mercilessly merry smile, who showed no sign of fatigue as the third set entered its 20th game; and then had the nerve to say in her press interview that she played for fun. But the most remarkable thing about Carina Karlsson is that she is ranked 174 on the Virginia Slims compu- ter. As for Virginia Wade, I can only echo the words of my predecessor and say that she is still playing some magnificent tennis at the age of 39.
While the Wade-Karlsson match, played mainly from the base-line, was taking place on Court Two, a different kind of duel was being fought on the Centre Court. The match between Hana Mandlikova and Catherine Tanvier was too brief and error- strewn to be considered a classic, but the second set had several moments of lithe and springing glory. Was that perhaps, I wondered, the way Suzanne Lenglen play- ed? The only sad thing was that in tighten- ing up her game, Hana appears to have screwed up her doll-like countenance into a permanent frown. She no longer smiles, but shakes her head instead, and delivers harsh little Czech expletives. But Tanvier smiles, and not falsely, as spoilt Carling Bassett did when she lost to Ann Hobbs, but naturally and tomboyishly.
Altogether, Wimbledon seems more normal and natural this year. Even the weather, that wonderful Wimbledon weather which Dan Maskell was always telling us about while it poured with rain, has so far behaved. As for McEnroe . . . well, he has behaved, but the strain may be telling. 'The balls didn't seem to be com- pletely round,' he muttered at his press interview. Perhaps the lines are not straight either. But one has to give him his due, and admit that he has got his own back on the press. Instead of the author- ities coming down on him, as the press direly warned, it is the press itself which has been cautioned, though at the instiga- tion of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, not John McEnroe. 'All this rubbish about our private lives should be stopped,' said Chris bravely at her press interview, and I think she is absolutely correct. But this is taking me away from the tennis, and as the best tennis here has been played by McEnroe, it is right to end with him, though not in my words, but those of John Stewart Collis: 'One would imagine that such men [e.g. Kriek, Teacher, Alexander] could not be subdued. But the compara- tively frail figure of McEnroe steps forward to render them harmless: by his so potent art he can cancel and tear to pieces their oak-cleaving thunderbolts. His character is awful indeed; but I am surprised that so distinguished a player as Taki should. . . disparage so great an artist; for if we are to judge artists by their characters, where will that lead us?'
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