The All England Lawn Tennis Club is accused of ‘squishing locals’ as it turns a park set aside for public use into a car park during the championshipsThere was a little knot of demonstrators on Wimbledon Park Road on Friday morning, just up the way from the All England Lawn Tennis Club. It was a very proper little picket, polite placards, friendly flyers inviting people to sign a petition.As protests go, it was ever so SW19, a civil sort of disobedience. “Welcome to Wimbledon Park!” the handouts read, “The Wimbledon and Southfields communities hope you have a great day at the tennis. They are giving up a lot so you can park here today.” Mainly their public park land, which...
Winning all four majors in a single year, and doing so twice, is a wondrous feat worthy of the verdict: ‘The best of the best’ Rod Laver recognises the apples/oranges element inherent in comparing records across eras, but the player acknowledged as the finest of his generation and voted as the best of the 20th century did something no other tennis great ever has: win the grand slam, twice. Repeat: all four majors in the same year. Twice.The first, in 1962, was from a so-called amateur field already weakened by the defection to the professional ranks of players such as Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzales. The second – and most significant – followed Laver’s own 21-slam exile while...
The health, safety and lives of players, staff and spectators so obviously override mere Wimbledon. How could that ever have been in doubt?Hung juries have taken less time than the All England Club to convict a villain as bang to rights as coronavirus. When the club’s board emerged from three days and several hours of teleconference pondering on Wednesday afternoon to confirm that the 134th Wimbledon championships would, indeed, be cancelled, because the killer is still stalking not just the pleasant environs of London SW19 but the entire globe, the question was: what took you so long?There was a carefully worded statement of the obvious. When Ian Hewitt, the new chairman, said: “This is a decision that we have not...
The Romanian has worked on her mentality as well as her groundstrokes and both were in fine fettle as she dismantled the great Serena Williams on Centre CourtIt took 56 minutes into the biggest match of Simona Halep’s career for her legs to go finally wobbly. But at that point her opponent, Serena Williams, was shuffling towards the net, head bowed and hand outstretched. And Centre Court was rising and roaring to salute a performance of staggering intensity.Watching on it seemed impossible that when Halep was a young child in Romania she used to cry before going onto court because she was so shy. Yet on the game’s biggest stage the tiny introvert was transformed into a lion with ice...
Swiss justified the All England Club’s decision to make him No 2 seed as he came back from a limp second set against his old friend and rival to avenge 2008 final defeatTwo old friends played some tennis for a shade over three hours on a sunny Friday evening and everything felt right with the world. When it was over the crowd gave both their heroes standing ovations and prayed for an encore. Everyone agreed: this simply cannot be the last time Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal meet at Wimbledon.Did it have to end? Unfortunately it did and when it was over the majestic Federer had reached the second Sunday for the 12th time, made up for his defeat to...