Wimbledon Under the Weather

By Tom Callahan

"This is an accepted part of the English masochistic life"

The Port Stanley spirit, formerly known as the Dunkirk spirit, reigned and reigned throughout the Wimbledon fortnight. During a brief tennis spell between showers in the first week, Ted Tinling, a designer of tennis dresses and an original himself, said, "When Virginia Wade ['Our Ginny'] played Jo Durie the other evening, it was the ultimate English fiesta. The spectators suffered all day, soaked to the skin. Suddenly the sun came out for ten seconds. They all opened their picnic baskets and exclaimed, 'Isn't this wonderful?' This is an accepted part of the English masochistic life."

A tall, pointy-headed, bald septuagenarian with a diamond in one ear, Tinling presided as the Wimbledon master of ceremonies until 1949, when he was banished for sewing lace on Gussie Moran's panties. Since then he has gone from troublemaker to troubleshooter, chief of player liaison. "I shoot trouble all day long," Tinling said cheerfully. Each morning, he telephoned John McEnroe to see if there was anything he could do. Besides successfully negotiating the release of last year's trophies from the still smarting All England Club, there was nothing. "They're nice trophies," mumbled McEnroe.

McEnroe's dreaded return to "the pits of the world" with its "incompetent fools" and "disgraces to mankind" was upstaged by war, weather, World Cup, and wagering whether the royal baby would be named Prince William or Prince Graphite--after the rug beater of an oversize tennis racquet that seemed to have taken over Wimbledon. "I'm trying to laugh things off a little more," McEnroe said. During some matches, he did mutter the word moronic, and there was one umpire's warning for "abuse of ball." But, as he said, "for me, I was relaxed. I never want to go through last year again. I'm planning on enjoying my tennis career at some point."

In the absence of controversy and Bjorn Borg, a capacity for enjoyment was a theme of The Championships, as everyone awaited the stirring final that customarily pulls Wimbledon through all heavy weather in the end. Burned out for a while at 26, then burned up at having to qualify for a tournament he has won five times, Borg went fishing this year instead. While the weather and the tube strike were presumed to be the main reasons attendance was off considerably, some Londoners must have felt deprived of a third annual Borg-McEnroe final, their favorite Punch and Judy show.

Of other no-shows, Argentina's Guillermo Vilas and Jose Luis Clerc were political casualties, and Czechoslovak Stoic Ivan Lendl, a clay court enthusiast, who seemed this year to be on the verge of dominating the sport, stayed away because of either an allergy or an aversion to grass. In three Wimbledon tries, Lendl fell in the first round twice, including last year, and once lost in the third round.

Most of the remaining players loved being back in church, and many said so unabashedly. Centre Court is not much to look at, sort of a minor-league Fenway Park, dark green and full of splinters, but some people imagine stained-glass windows. "I enjoyed even losing," said Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who "happened to win Wimbledon in 1971" at the age of 19 and "thought nothing of it." But she was blessed to repeat two years ago. "I could appreciate it then, actually enjoy it," she said. "During my pregnancies, I did all the things I'd missed out on. Now I treasure playing tennis and being excited at Wimbledon." With a pretty smile, she took her leave in the second round this year.

Billie Jean King stayed longer. After her record 100th Wimbledon singles match had been played and won on an outer court, King repaired to her spiritual home, Centre Court, fought off three match points against Tanya Harford and threatened to stay forever. "When you think of 100 matches," King said, not to mention six singles championships, 20 Wimbledon titles in all, 22 years at the task, "it makes you feel tired. But I'm not tired. I'm all excited." She is 38. "I'll still be thinking of winning Wimbledon when I'm 100." Heroically, she lasted to the semifinals.

Jimmy Connors, bearing down on 30, was thinking of more than winning, savoring a big chance and leaving it to others to reckon how much remains of the skill that brought him the 1974 championship. "It never slips away until it's gone," said Connors, a former wise guy gaining in wisdom.

During the incessant pulling on and off of the "covers" (tarpaulins), British journalists and other kinds adjourned to a convenient bar. Invariably, the conversation wound its way to tradition. "Americans seem even fonder of tradition than we are," said Laurie Pignon of the Daily Mail, "one supposes because they have so bloody little of it. But they have the best winners in tennis, and we have the best losers in the world, and tradition will always keep Wimbledon special, if not what it was." For Pignon, a picturesquely mustachioed man with a pipe and a paisley shirt, this was his 44th Wimbledon. "It used to be a way of life," he said, "much more gentle. The whole atmosphere of the place is commercial now, and of course it has to be. Now it is a T-shirt factory that also produces a world champion: a conveyor belt, if you like."

It is said that the first real downpouring rains came to Wimbledon in 1968 with the professionals, and prior to that there was a sunny expression, "Wimbledon weather," meaning calm cloudless days. On D-day in June 1944, as he pushed off with the invasion forces in a fierce, howling squall, Tinling can remember saying, "Thank heaven we don't have a Wimbledon this year," and thinking that was lucky. --By Tom Callahan

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