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Wimbledon Is More Than Tennis

Consider what makes Wimbledon memorable and you have to concede it's something more than tennis.

From strawberries and cream to champagne and Pimm's Cup; the manicured grass to the maddeningly unpredictable weather; from the echoes of empire in Kipling's call to meet triumph or disaster with equanimity, emblazoned above the archway to Centre Court, to the carefully cultivated ivy scrambling over walls and fences and multi-hued hydrangeas that help create the ambiance of a garden party; in some respects the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club's annual tournament at Wimbledon seems as much a monument to tradition as to tennis.

In fact, the organizer's own Web site (www.wimbledon.org) calls this the time of year when tennis "pauses on its axis" in a bow to tradition, adding, "indeed the All England Club is knee-deep in the stuff."

Strange, perhaps, to think that the $20 million Grand Slam tournament getting under way, supposedly to decide who plays tennis best on grass, is "knee-deep" in something other than the sport.

Or, perhaps not. After all, Wimbledon is still the place where the players must all wear white, where the men earn more than the women, and where the best seats in the house are reserved for those who've inherited them, or who'd need an inheritance to afford to purchase them — all traditions the Club fiercely defends.

My friend Michael Mewshaw, a journalist and novelist, once described Wimbledon as "a lofty fortress of tradition (which) chose to establish itself ... as a theme park, something along the lines of Disneyland, in which crowds gather annually to worship the real and imagined virtues of the nation's past." As Mewshaw sees it, Wimbledon's master stroke happens less between ball and racquet than between publicity agents and the press. As a result, every year there are stories lauding the place for which "... dreamy euphonious notes have been struck, all harkening back in time to some misty halcyon age when Britannia ruled the waves."
Only a cynic, of course, would conclude the annual summer spectacle now getting under way is more a showcase for Britain's tourism industry than for world championship tennis. But just as Royal Ascot is as much about hats as it is about horse racing, Wimbledon tends to be regarded as a symbol of something quintessentially English first, and a venue for sport, second. You need only be a realist to recognize news about tennis over the next two weeks won't necessarily be dominated by tennis. There'll be a blitz of British tradition and eccentricity, the bling associated with celebrity, some superstar sex appeal, or petulance, and then there'll be the winners and losers.

Interestingly, even the competitors seem to recognize Wimbledon's uniqueness on the Grand Slam circuit isn't just its grass courts.

When perennial British hopeful Tim Henman lost in the Queen's Cup run-up to Wimbledon this year, one newspaper analysis concluded he "lacked clarity of thought." Henman himself then announced his game plan for Wimbledon would be to "concentrate." Did you believe it's all about hitting the ball over the net in such a way that your opponent can't hit it back? Not at all. It's the thought that counts.

Boris Becker some years ago famously challenged the notion that Wimbledon's simply about tennis. From the fifth set on, it's not about tennis at all, he said, "it's about character."

So welcome to The Championships, non-sports fans, for another annual fortnight of tradition, concentration, character — and, to the extent the weather cooperates, tennis.

By Richard Roth

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