In the middle of last week, walking around the All England Club in between the persistent showers, it was hard to miss the noise. This was not the gentle ripple of appreciative applause punctuated by the occasional pop of a champagne cork that has soundtracked the Wimbledon championships for decades.
Nor was it a would-be comedian insisting on yelling “C’mon, Tim” at the top of his voice, years and years after Tim Henman hung up his racket. This was a throaty, full-on roar, a football-style bellow, the sound of a single word, its monosyllable extended out into a seemingly endless roar – drowning out what little buzz has been generated by this year’s tournament, a fortnight so beset by the rain, hindered by an obvious lack of star power and flattened by the dispiriting sense of incomplete storylines involving British favourites.
And there alongside court number 16, as hundreds of the curious discovered when they headed there, was the source of the disturbance. A dozen or so young lads in red shirts were relentlessly belting out their signature yell: “Roooooooon”. It was done in celebration of the young Danish player Holger Rune as he defeated the magnificently named Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild.
The startled Wimbledon regulars looked aghast as the roar carried on and on, asking each other what on earth this was all about. But they should get used to it. Because this may well be the sound of the future of tennis. Or so those behind the game hope.
Rune is one of the star characters in the new Netflix series Break Point. Attempting to do for tennis what Drive To Survive did for Formula One, the purpose of the programme – which is co-produced by the Association of Tennis Professionals – is to present the game as the smartest, sharpest, sexiest sport around. And with that, draw a whole new, young audience into its processes. This year’s Wimbledon was the first chance for the new cohort of fans, lured by the show, to see its cast of characters in action.
How Wimbledon needed this injection of freshness. Because frankly, one of our nation’s finest sporting traditions has this year been a complete, sodden, drenched and depressed washout. And not just because of the weather.
A ticket to the Royal Box on the Wednesday of Wimbledon’s second week has long been reckoned one of the smartest summer invitations in town. This year was no exception: the Queen was there in the front row. Nearby were Björn from Abba, Keira Knightley, Richard E Grant, Bryn Terfel. This was the A list, there to see and be seen. The trouble was, while the paparazzi could snap away, there was precious little for the subjects of their lenses to see. The main draw was Novak Djokovic’s quarter final tie against the Australian Alex de Minaur. But the Royal Box invitees did not get to witness everyone’s favourite bad boy after de Minaur pulled out with injury. With that, everything dissipated, the air seeped from the balloon. A couple of Ovas in the ladies draw aside, there was nothing to detain anyone for long. Which at least meant everyone had plenty of time to get home in time for the football.
In tennis, we are in a period of what might be best described as transition. Of the golden generation of Djokovic and Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal, only the Serb remains standing. At this Wimbledon, with the rain dampening spirits at every opportunity, we have seen the debt owed to the compelling sporting drama so often generated by that quartet. Once Murray made his tearful departure, once Emma Raducanu succumbed to defeat, there seemed little to capture not just the attention of the wider public watching on television, but those actually turning up to the All England Club. Many seats in the show courts have remained empty as punters prefer not to watch two identikit eastern European women slog out the prizes. In the bars, the requirement of a mortgage to secure a glass of Pimm’s has flattened the conviviality. Even the pro-Palestine protestors, there to object to Wimbledon’s banking partner Barclays, gave up after the first day. Perhaps the most telling indication of a nation whose attention is elsewhere came on Saturday when half the Centre Court crowd preferred to tune into England’s penalty shoot-out on their mobiles than watch Djokovic continue to rage against the dying of the light.
So where were the new guys, the Break Point superstars to set the collective pulse racing? Why aren’t they stepping into the breach? The answer is: after that brief flourish on the outside court in the first week, they were all knocked out long before the end.
The thing about Break Point is that it is a television, not a sporting phenomenon. Beautifully edited to heighten the drama, this is all handsome young protagonists going smash, bang, wallop. For those who have tuned in, it has quickly turned the more photogenic members of the tour into celebrities, developing social media-led fan followings long before they have come close to winning a major tournament. Their fans have been attracted by the televised moments, which make everything look sparkling and have no place for a lengthy second set in which neither player can break the other’s serve.
And Wimbledon, for all its social niceties, is at heart a…
The Telegraph
