Few things are more gloriously British than Wimbledon fortnight

FOR 50 weeks of the year the vast majority in the land have no interest in tennis. Accordingly, and to the frustration of those of us who do, reports of tournaments, matches and results are normally buried at least six pages from the back of the paper, just behind the horses if, at least, ahead of the greyhounds.

To catch up on the latest glories of Rafael Nadal, you more or less need a headlamp and, even if there are free tennis courts in your local park, it is rare to see any younglings actually using them.

Then, on the first monday after the longest day, there begins wimbledon Fortnight and, for 14 days, we are immersed in that gorgeous, garden-like world of purple and green.

And, for the duration, we talk of nothing else. we make nonchalant remarks about that dream of a cross-court volley, marvel that Serena williams is still going, wonder where the Duchess of cambridge snapped up that gorgeous cardigan.

And we chuckle when something goes wrong: like a pigeon, mid-point, on centre court; a doubles match when all four players fall over at the same time; the delirious occasion in 1964 when a lady line-judge, who had perhaps overdone the pimm’s and lemonade at lunchtime, fell asleep in her chair; or when pete Sampras’s racket snapped in two. He but beamed, and flung it to some lucky child in the crowd.

And we recall that interminable era when that personality-free zone, Tim Henman, seemed a serious contender and how, on the brink of his latest double-fault, BBC cameras always cut to someone in the crowd with their head bowed in prayer.

And the ultimate low, on July 3, 1996, when it rained so long that they had to ask cliff Richard to sing.

A sentimental bunch we are and, in the years when there was no serious British hopeful (which, since the 1970s, has been most of them) many overseas stars were adopted as our pets.

Evonne Goolagong, chris Evert, Arthur Ashe, Andre Agassi and the Thai challenger paradorn Srichaphan – he used to bow to the audience after every match, hands together in a little namaste – became beloved national treasures.

AND Andy Roddick, of course, who became such a darling of Sw19 that many shamelessly cheered him on in his last match against Andy murray (Save for the wag who kept calling, ‘come on, Tim!’).

And then there were the bad guys. The pushy women. The mouthier Americans. The scowling menaces with something of the night about them.

I am just old enough to remember what fun the papers would have with Ilie Nastase, a handsome Romanian notorious for his lip, tantrums and gamesmanship.

But as ‘Nasty’ faded from the scene, bodacious Jimmy connors hollered in his stead. we soon had, too, John McEnroe as the lout everyone loved to hate. And Ivan lendl, that lugubrious czech always readily distinguished from a ray of sunshine.

Not to mention women who were simply too darned good for British liking. like ‘Fräulein Forehand’ Steffi Graf herself. Or the williams sisters. Or monica Seles – that incessant grunting – and, most of all, Billie Jean King. That bespectacled little californian with the toothy grin was, I still think, the greatest female player of all time. But the wimbledon crowd never took to her. She pumped her fist. She incessantly berated herself.

Sometimes she stared about the court with The withering Glance of the Ice Goddess. But the real problem – in an era when there was not one woman on the All England club committee and rarely two dozen female mps – was that she far too obviously wanted to win.

when the rain came and the BBC had to fill screentime with reruns of classic old matches, it was certainly striking how slow, even in the late 70s, the women’s game used to be.

The likes of Sue Barker and mrs Evert lloyd would serve daintily and scamper timidly across court amidst interminable rallies.

matches could nevertheless be extremely exciting, the outcome often in doubt until the last serve. But professional tennis had nothing like the discipline demanded today. There was little interest in nutrition. Nobody weight trained. when Rod laver completed his second Grand Slam, at wimbledon in 1969, that night he got gloriously drunk.

Billie Jean, of course, gave every appearance of taking it seriously, as did virginia wade, who boinged up and down, awaiting her opponent’s latest serve, as if her heels were pogosticks. And who wore extraordinarily frilly undies that resembled nothing as much as smashed venetian blinds.

Gertrude ‘Gussie’ moran must have taken wry note. The californian was no slouch but, in 1949, she strode onto court in a diverting Teddy Tinling creation: a short white skirt, and knickers exquisitely trimmed in lace.

By today’s standards it was not the least unseemly but there was an outcry. It was raised in parliament. The All England club committee itself slammed moran for ‘putting vulgarity and sin into tennis’.

OVERNIGHT she became ‘Gorgeous Gussie’ and a racehorse, an aeroplane and even a sauce were named after her. But for many years the flamboyant designer Tinling was banned from the wimbledon precincts.

Wimbledon and the sport itself have changed. Though McEnroe, an exquisite ‘touch’ player, held on to his wooden racket for as long as he could, by the early 80s super-engineered things in steel, aluminium and graphite had arrived.

From 1971, new nine-point tie-breaker rules made very long matches much less likely – though that did not spare us John Isner and Nicolas mahut’s epic performance in 2010. It was contested over three days, lasted 11 hours and five minutes, and finally went to mr Isner at 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, and – wait for it – 70-68.

Now the show courts have roofs, electronics have put an end to dodgy calls, and since 1986 – a sensible concession to colour television – the balls have been yellow, not white.

But the biggest change is invisible – the grass. By the late 90s, when the men’s game was dominated by enormous serve-and-volley players and matches grew increasingly tedious, there was growing unrest and, since 2001, the courts have been sown with 100 per cent perennial rye grass, instead of the old 30 per cent cut of creeping red fescue with the rye.

much less bouncy, and greatly to the advantage of the much more entertaining baseline players. But, sadly, the real reason why Henman, a serve-and-volley lad to the last, never won wimbledon.

By mid-wimbledon we are having to drag our young home from the tarmac courts every night, when they are not thumping a ball against the garage wall.

we watch Andy murray from behind the sofa, agonise as our favourite lady serves to stay in the championships and, from uproar entire, that marvellous cathedral-like hush falls on centre court. There is simply no tournament like this.