Goodbye Glastonbury, hello Wimbledon with its strawberries, blazers and perfectly symmetrical lawns. Our two-week annual summer obsession is a highlight of what is still called The Season – a peculiarly British blend of champagne-fuelled events and inherited privilege.
But let’s call it what it is: Wimbledon is the crown jewel of one of the most elitist periods in Britain’s social calendar.
And unlike Glastonbury, which pretends to be for everyone, SW19 makes little attempt to hide its pedigree. From the Royal Box to £2,000 debenture seats and corporate hospitality, plummy commentary, it is less sport, more class performance where being seen to be there matters almost as much as who you see.
The dress code on the pitch is unashamedly still white, despite calls for change from some of the biggest names in the game. Meanwhile in the crowd, while technically there is no formal code, “smart” is encouraged and slogans are not permitted – that’s if you can afford to get in. Prices for basic Centre Court tickets are now over £100, although ground tickets are available for £30. The truth is that tennis in Britain remains an elite sport, and that is harming future generations of talent.
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The majority of independent schools offer tennis courts – an impossible dream for so many state schools at tens of thousands of pounds a pop to install.
Even then they could not afford the coaching or indoor facilities needed to nurture talent through our rainy climate. Public courts are in disrepair. We have about 2,000 indoor courts nationally, compared to over 5,000 in Germany and more than 9,000 in France. The sport remains overwhelmingly southern and middle class.
You want to grow the next Andy Murray or Emma Raducanu? Build more courts. Build them indoors. Take them to schools that have never even considered tennis. Invest in it like we invest in football.
There is surely a place for individual sports in our nurturing of young children, where they can learn to accept responsibility for their actions, decisions and mistakes. They learn to deal with stress, often compounded when scores are tight or if they’re losing, and there are obvious physical health benefits of a sport sometimes described as the “world’s healthiest” – it builds bone density and cognitive function, and can reduce the obesity and diabetes risks that so plague children in poorer areas.
Tennis is the most brutally honest of sports: one-on-one combat with nowhere to hide, no teammates to blame – unless of course you take up doubles, which also aids reflexes and teamwork. It’s just you, your opponent and your nerve. It is clearly good for both children’s psychological as well as physiological development.
We should nurture that both with encouragement and financial investment in making it as accessible as possible. That recent Lawn Tennis Association bid for £75m in funding to build 40 tennis centres nationally should be just the start!
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