I have always wondered why Tennis
happens to be amongst the most followed sports in India. As barring the Tier 1
cities there is hardly any supporting infrastructure for the sport to flourish.
Unlike Cricket, this sport has only a handful of national sporting icons to
look forward to. So the only potentially strong reason I could think of is ‘Doordarshan’. In the late 80s and early
90s where television was a luxury and present day bouquet of channels a distant
reality, Doordarshan was the only source of entertainment. And of the many
classics that Doordarshan telecasted, Wimbledon and French Open were the two
annual sporting events that the channel broadcasted. This not only enlightened
the nation about the nuances of this beautiful sport but also made the likes of
Lendls, Mc Enroes, Couriers, Navratilova, Grafs as the household names and
Wimbledon as the mecca of tennis. Ever since it has been a dream to experience
this spectacle live on those hallowed lawns.
And the opportunity presented
itself when I relocated to London 2 years back. But it isn’t easy to get
tickets for the annual Championships as you have to either go for the
lottery/ballot route which opens the year before in September with lucky draws
out in Feb/Mar or you queue up with a hundred thousands more from 2 AM in the
morning for the day pass/ticket. While the latter wasn’t a possibility, hard
luck prevailed in the former and Wimbledon 2016 also seemed to be an improbable
proposition. But interestingly as the
championships started, week 1 was marred by rains, with lot of matches piled up
for week 2. I was Cognizant of the fact that middle Sunday is the rest day and
only 4 times in over 100 years has there been play on the middle Sunday. So
with such massive disruption in play, the possibility of play on this year’s
Middle Sunday was ripe. My constant vigil on their official website helped, as
they announced late Friday evening that there will be play on this year’s
Middle Sunday to accommodate for all the pending matches for the week and the
tickets will be sold online next day at 1PM. I was all gung-ho from 1230 to not miss this golden chance to
grab a pair of tickets but there was another delay and the ticket sale started
only at 3PM. And by 3.02 PM whole of Centre Court was gone, thankfully I got
the Court 1 tickets which also gave me access to watch matches on all other
courts, and the feeling was akin to getting 99 percentile in CAT J.
Then, began the quest for the
partner to accompany me on ‘THE’ day. Family couldn’t go as kids under 5 are
not allowed in the show courts, so much for that coveted decorum. I called up
few friends, most busy with their late Saturday afternoon nap missed the call,
one answered and got lucky to live the dream of being in attendance at the
Championships. There were some hush-hush calls between two of us in preparation
for the most anticipated day in a long-long time, we were both apprehensive
about the attire we have to wear to gain access – formals or whites was the dilemma. Thankfully, the official website
confirmed that there are no such restrictions for the spectators at least and
if we have the tickets we are the Kings of the Wimbledon for the day J.
On the morning of the match day,
the euphoria was at its pinnacle, the moment we entered the premises we were
awestruck, eyes and mouth both wide opened. There was still sometime for the
start of play, so we decided to do a tour of the Centre Court, the arena that
has been the host to so many epic battles. Our tickets didn’t allow us to enter
the centre court but on some typical Indian persuasion the gate guards agreed
to let us in to have a view and click some photographs. We made the most of it
and spent almost half an hour inside, soaking in the magnanimity of the
place. While we came out of the Centre
Court, there was still some time to the start of play so we planned to meander
around the practise courts in the anticipation of bumping into few tennis
stars. And to our good fortune, we managed to see the likes of Serena,
Kuznetsova, Stephens, Del Potro practising in full flow just yards away from
us, giving us a clear idea on what goes behind those stellar performances on
the court. It was a real treat to watch these stars prepare for their matches.
As the day began, we kept hoping
from one court to the other catching up on the key moments of all the in-play
matches. The key matches that we watched were Kuznetsova vs Stephens tight 3
setter, Kyrgios vs Lopez, battle of the serves, Vesely upsetting Sousa in 3
straight sets but the highlight of all these single matches was the Isner Vs
Tsonga epic 5 setter that was as breath taking as the final score line read 7/6
6/3 6/7 2/6 17/19. It was a real
humdinger with neither of the players willing to relent. I so wished to watch
either of Federer or Djokovic in action, but the former had a day off and
latter had already suffered a shocking exit a day before. But 2 matches that we
were eyeing right from the time we saw the order of play were ladies double
match featuring Sania and Hingis and men’s doubles duel involving the legendary
Leander Paes. Now the early round matches of both men’s and ladies doubles
don’t happen on the show courts rather they are being played on the open courts
which are placed one besides the rather. This gave us the opportunity to watch
both these Indian icons from an arms distance, though Paes and his partner
crashed out with a dismal straight 2 set loss to there much younger and agile
opponents, Sania and Hingis literally steam rolled there Japanese rivals.
Nonetheless, it was a real proud moment watching our Indian heroes live in
action.
The day couldn’t have been more
busy, remarkable and breath taking. It lived up to its billing and the age long
wait. However, two things stood out that day, one was my friend identifying
Serena’s mother meandering outside Center Court, possibly coming out of
Serena’s match and switching courts to see Venus in action. He rushed up to
her, requesting for a selfie and she replied back with the most dramatic
response possible, ‘Really’ (she
said, surprised by the fact that he is keen to get clicked with her too J ). Yes he said, and we
became a part of the most unusual selfie of our livesJ. Second was with Leander, he
was visibly upset post his surprise 2nd round loss and as he came
out of the court he was mobbed by the Indian diaspora for photographs and
autographs. He kindly obliged all the fans but I missed out on the photo op as
I was too far behind. As he moved ahead with his escort, I ran behind him for a
potential selfie with the superstar, his escort came to the rescue and sternly
warned me to back off. But to the true gentleman that Leander is, he held the
escort back and told me ‘come on in,
click it fast’. That was enough for me to get bowled over by him for life,
not for his game but for his humility this time, true gentleman indeed.
It was a satiating day, couldn’t have
asked for a better outing. The tagline of the championship reads ‘IN PURSUIT of GREATNESS’, and while
you spend your time there you could actually relate to this tagline. There is
something special, something extraordinary about the entire setting, something
that makes you fall in love with the place and the event forever. I wish I keep
getting more and more chances to witness this spectacle and get enchanted by this
phenomena all over again, preferably with a bit of Federer in live action too J.
--
kin…
Post Script – Live cricket in Lords, CHECK. Live premier league game at Emirates Stadium, Arsenal, CHECK.
Live tennis at Wimbledon, CHECK. What next? Possibly Ind v Pak,
Champion Trophy match at Kia Oval
next year J.
