Wimbledon’s Centenary Celebrations Sadly Set For Hollowest Championships Yet
June 26th 2022, the eve of this year’s Wimbledon Championships, will mark 100 years since the tournament’s inaugural tennis match at the current location of Centre Court in Church Road, SW19.
Never one to shy away from a good opportunity to further embrace ceremonial tradition, the All England Lawn Tennis Club has set out an impressive – if somewhat restrained – selection of special changes to this year’s Championships, a celebration that is formally titled ‘The Stage Awaits’.
In quintessentially ‘All England’ style, the AELTC have outdone themselves in their ongoing efforts to quietly modernise, while keeping everything firmly rooted in history.
A Special Year
Something of an outsider in recent times, this year Wimbledon joins the rest of her Grand Slam siblings by scrapping the traditional ‘day of rest’ that is Middle Sunday. From this summer onwards, SW19 will have tennis matches throughout the fortnight, and the All England Club have chosen to use the first ever match-day Middle Sunday as the focal point for their Centre Court centenary celebrations, with a “special moment” planned between the second and third matches on that 3rd July – the details of which have been well-hidden up the tightly-buttoned sleeves of the All England contingent.
The day has also been framed as an occasion for the local community, with tickets offered to nearby residents, schools, charities and community groups. Although one can’t help but wonder whether this serves as more of a peace-offering than anything else, following some fairly hostile recent legal disputes over the building of a new show court.
But I digress.
Another change to this year’s tournament will see the players walk out on to Centre Court from a different entrance. They will still walk through the clubhouse – as is tradition – but they will emerge centrally, from underneath the royal box, as opposed to from the side of the arena.
As well as being a respectful nod to the Duchess of Cambridge, patron of the All England Club, this also gives what has been a relatively subdued main-court entrance in years past some much-needed grandeur. In absence of the bright lights and loud music of the other three majors, Wimbledon has instead opted to accentuate its regal connections in order to elevate its players’ entrances.
It will, of course, also allow television cameras and spectators in the arena to catch a tantalising glimpse into the hallowed Wimbledon clubhouse – if their gaze can be averted from the various forms of royalty in the box above, that is.
In addition, the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum will feature a special exhibition on Centre Court called 100 Years of Change, as well as a new interactive gallery exploring the Open Era of tennis.
According to the official Wimbledon website, “The umpire’s chair has been redesigned and will be in situ on Centre Court and No.1 Court this year, before expanding to all courts in 2023”, with a final unique feature of this year’s Championships being the use of bespoke platinum coins for the Finals Weekend coin tosses, in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Yet while there is much to anticipate taking place in SW19 this summer, it is a sad truth that, behind all the ostentatious pageantry of centennial celebration, Wimbledon 2022 looks set to be an oddly hollow affair.
Players Banned
All of this stems from a set of deeply regrettable decisions taken by various tennis governing bodies over the past three months.
It was announced in April of this year that Russian and Belarusian tennis players would be banned from playing at Wimbledon this summer, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The rest of the tennis community, meanwhile, went in a different direction, allowing those players to compete, but only under a neutral flag. Both countries remain entirely banned from all tennis team competitions – as they should.
Given the imperfect nature of any decision… the imperative was always to find something resembling some sort of middle ground.
The circumstances surrounding these decisions are extraordinary, and there is no moral absolute in any possible form of action or inaction. Because of this, criticism at once becomes both inevitable and largely futile.
However, given the imperfect nature of any decision and the impossible scenario both ends of the argument result in, the imperative was always to find something resembling some sort of middle ground – as flawed as that compromise would also have been. Neutrality, loss of prize money, and private discussions about players’ stance towards the war – these were all viable options.
Wimbledon organisers chose not to engage with any of these. Rather than looking for a compromise, they took the most extreme option that was on the table. Why? Well, essentially, because the UK government advised them to do so.
Unfortunately, the most extreme option was also by far the most damaging for the wider tennis community. Not only does it undermine the core principles of tennis (and wider liberal society) as a free and open sport based on meritocracy, but it sets a deeply disconcerting precedent for other powerful and prestigious governing or sporting bodies to impose similar restrictions based on comparably arbitrary grounds – namely, where someone is from.
Nevertheless the decision was made, unilaterally, and without the support of the vast majority of the tennis community.
Now, there are those who argue that Wimbledon’s hands were tied – if your government is pressurising you to do something, there is little in your power to deny them their wish. This view must be fundamentally rejected. Indeed, it is paramount to the integrity of sports and society as a whole that this should not be the case. When and why was it deemed appropriate for an independent, global-facing tournament with the century-plus prestige of Wimbledon to become a mouthpiece for a sitting UK government?
There are also those who point out that the propaganda of a Russian or Belarusian Singles Champion would be a powerful tool against Ukraine’s war effort, and the risk was too big to take. This is a valid argument. However, again, there were good options available to not only mitigate this risk, but to actively subvert it. For example, imagine a scenario in which a Russian player wins Wimbledon, but is obliged to publicly donate all their winnings to the Ukrainian war effort? The beneficiaries of such a scenario, for all reasons, are obvious.
No Ranking Points
Whatever one thinks of Wimbledon’s decision, though, it can at least be understood.
The same cannot be said for the retaliation of the ATP and the WTA, which is quite simply nonsensical – to put it politely. Their response was to strip Wimbledon of all ranking points for this summer’s Championships, citing a contravention of their governing bodies’ principles and to protect the unjust loss of points that Russian and Belarusian players would suffer.
What makes this decision all the more maddening is that there was a very simple way to protect against any perceived unjust loss of points.
What apparently didn’t cross the minds of the decision-makers here was that the only thing this would achieve would be to damage every player’s ranking on tour, rendering points gained obsolete, and decimating the integrity of the entire ranking system. Not only this, but it disproportionately affects those who performed well at Wimbledon last summer – ironically, all in the name of protecting sporting meritocracy.
What makes this decision all the more maddening is that there was a very simple way to protect against any perceived unjust loss of points. The ATP and the WTA could have merely frozen Russian and Belarusian ranking points from Wimbledon 2021, meaning there was no drop-off from what they accumulated last year. Instead, they went for the ludicrous option of punishing all players. Not only does this achieve nothing (Wimbledon still looks set to attract most players who are able to compete), it is also astoundingly reductive and damages professional tennis.
A Hollow Centennial?
And yet, despite the fact that Wimbledon this year will sit as a lone tournament, outside the rest of the tennis ranking season, the biggest dent to this year’s edition remains the self-inflicted wound of an absence of some star players.
One unfortunate outcome of the ban, for example, is that the Men’s World No.1 will be absent from this year’s Wimbledon, as will the Women’s World No. 5. This coincides with the rather inopportune absence of the Men’s No.2, Alexander Zverev, who injured himself in the semi-finals of Roland Garros just weeks prior to the tournament. It will therefore be the first time since the introduction of the ATP rankings in 1973 that neither the Men’s No. 1 or No.2 will be at the Championships.
Also missing will be another Men’s top 10 seed, and highly popular player, Andrey Rublev – who, incidentally, has publicly denounced the war as much as he safely can.
Then, albeit for very different reasons, there is the absence of a certain Roger Federer, who – despite being very much in the twilight of his career – has not missed a Wimbledon Championships since his debut in 1999, and still remains the box-office draw on the green, green grass of South-West London.
And so it is that on the 100th anniversary of play at Church Road’s Centre Court, a Wimbledon that should be celebrated like no other before instead all feels rather flat.
True, the decision to remove ranking points from this year’s event was not Wimbledon’s choice, but it was most certainly triggered by the organisers’ own actions. It is also true that the lack of ranking points won’t dissuade most players from competing, but is this much comfort in an event where the Men’s World No. 1 is banned from even attending?
There just seems something sadly incongruous about a jubilant celebration, revelling in 100 years of the cathedral of tennis, set against a Championships that has been acrimoniously stripped of ranking points, and where players of a certain nationality are barred from entry.
It almost seems as though the All England Club are using the centenary of a wonderful sporting occasion not to celebrate the beauty of tennis, and the joyous unifying power of sport generally, but to commemorate years of age-old tradition, and tired ceremonial duty. A celebration that is quite happy to court controversy and impose exclusion.
Perhaps this is unfair. Yes, we are living in deeply painful and extraordinary times. It just seems that at such times, sport is a powerful device through which to overcome the division caused by those who wish to keep us apart.
One can’t quite shake the sense that, in eulogising the past and glorifying the future, the Wimbledon centenary celebrations may have overlooked the importance of the here and now.
After two pandemic-affected years, and the turmoil this brought to so many, let’s hope that the Wimbledon centenary can deliver the heart-warming celebration everyone needs. It’s just a terrible pity that the real reason to celebrate appears to have been lost behind all the pomp and circumstance.
As such, what should be the most fabulous festival of tennis may well feel like a sadly hollow affair.
