Why must the Beeb serve up tennis for dummies?
AM TrYInG and failing to avert my gaze from these juicy Wimbledon glories. And for once I don’t mean roger Federer’s thighs or the angelic wingspan of Fabio Fognini’s mighty shoulders.
I’m talking about that giant bowl of giant strawberries on the desk next to clare Balding. They make concentrating on groundstroke consistency and the absurd concrete crimp of her pantomime dame eyeliner harder than usual.
The strawberries have been clare’s sidekick each night on Today At Wimbledon, the highlights show she presents on BBc Two throughout the competition.
I know what you’re thinking. rosy, stippled, incapable of intelligent speech — what is the difference between them and Pat cash?
Good point, yet perhaps nothing says world’s greatest tennis tournament better than a pile of old fruits slowly putrefying under the hot television lights. But enough about clare’s superannuated guests, waffling on about great volleys of yesteryear. What the heck are the Frankenberries even doing there?
On Wednesday evening, Balding and cash joined the fruit bowl on their alfresco Wimbledon set, which looks like a space-age dining table has crashed into a Waitrose plant stall. Aliens could have been forgiven for assuming clare’n’Pat were a couple on a heroically mismatched Tinder date but still trying to make the best of it.
All too soon, John McEnroe crashed the party to drone on about Evonne Goolagong, the Aussie champ of yore, and stick up for the disgraced Daniil Medvedev, who had thrown coins at an umpire earlier in the day.
MAC may be a terrific tennis commentator, but there is something deadly about the selfimportant honk of his voice and the determined way he lobs his dusty anecdotes into every round-table conversation that makes me want to plug my ears with tennis balls.
As this is the 90th anniversary of BBc Wimbledon coverage, since the Beeb first began broadcasting matches on radio, each show is garlanded with a montage of golden broadcasting moments over the years.
Perhaps this is a mistake, because all it does is remind viewers of the superior coverage of the past.
In the days of the great commentator Dan Maskell, the sainted Des Lynam and, yes, even the usurped John Inverdale, the tennis was always the true star. Waffle, interviews and chat were all kept to a minimum so the beauty of the sport could speak for itself.
Yet the BBc just can’t help itself. Once more it has given in to its reckless corporate urge to jazz up and dumb down where nothing of the sort is needed.
Viewers are already complaining that Today At Wimbledon has too much chat and too few matches.
Tennis fans who have been working all day — the vast majority of us — want to come home and watch a simple, comprehensive round-up of the day. They want as many on-court highlights as possible, straightforward scrutiny and expert opinion.
Instead they are confronted with film packages, punditry, annoying music being played over match highlights and clare presenting clare interviewing sundry tennis stars earlier in the day.
To be fair, Miss Balding is brilliant at interviews, one of the few sports presenters who can turn these bland exchanges into something meaningful and interesting. I also like her crisp hosting discipline and the way she keeps everything moving along.
And of course, anything is better than the debacle of Wimbledon 2Day, her zany, Twitter-friendly show which everyone loathed in 2015.
Thankfully the BBc lobbed it into the long grass and reinstated the old formula, though fans still miss John Inverdale’s homely approach.
HE PRESENTED his nofrills version of Today At Wimbledon for 14 years. But after making an unfortunate remark about player Marion Bartoli ‘never going to be a looker’, Inverdale was exiled to Planet sexist, never to be seen again.
At least he didn’t refer to female tennis players as ‘girls’, which Pat cash does all the time. You’d think that would earn him a lifetime ban but no, there he is, large as life and giving the desk strawberries a run for their pips.
so where does that leave us? The problem with Wimbledon coverage is that BBc bosses now insist on treating tennis as entertainment rather than sport, complete with X Factor-type back stories and endless talk of players’ struggles.
Terrified of not being inclusive, they avoid the purity of distilled expertise and assume everyone watching is a bit of an idiot who needs to be amused and diverted. Why else have Boris Becker commentating on important matches?
‘Look at that. He goes forward and BAM!’; ‘Pushy, pushy, pushy!’; ‘He is a big practice horse.’
Those were among the Borisinian gems the big German uttered during the rafa nadal/Donald Young match on Wednesday — and that was when I could understand what he was saying. Most of the time he just rumbles on, sounding like Arnold schwarzenegger talking through a gumshield in the corner of a sports bar.
At a key moment when nadal double-faulted, Boris didn’t even mention it because he was too busy waffling on about the French Open and reminding everyone that he is ‘a family man’.
Far too many of these hoary old players with nothing much to say are indulged on television, and every year it is the same old story — with the glory of Wimbledon comes the ordeal of the coverage.
How it ever got quite so bad is one of the mysteries of the age.