Tennis is one of those sports that you either love or hate. I don’t think there is an in between and you definitely need to know the game and scoring to get the full enjoyment from watching a game.
Although I am now in my *cough* forties I actually started to watch Wimbledon from the age of 16 or 17. My era of players were Becker/ Lendl/ Edburg/ Graf and Navratalova. I thought that era of tennis was exciting to watch, there were great rallies, different styles of shots, coming into the net more and a lot of variety which made watching the games exciting.
Then along came Sampras! Not that he doesn’t deserve his titles, the man was a machine, strong, fast and obviously unbeatable.
However, tennis then became boring. It became all about the biggest strongest serve and Ace after Ace…………not my idea of a match in any description. It became dull and not worth watching no matter how great the players were.
I have started to get back to it in the last few years. It certainly has had something to do with following Andy Murray’s progress through the ranks and tournaments. He has completely outranked the likes of Henman and Rudedski in my eyes. He is serious about his game and unbelievable competitive.
His game is very like the era of tennis I used to watch, a lot of the great players now are fabulous to watch, Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and lots, lots more.
This years Wimbledon has been amazing to watch. I have always watched the women as their game, with exception of the Williams sisters, have always been interesting to watch- especially now that they have almost stopped the grunt and scream with every shot!
This year I have been able to catch most matches, although I had to record the men’s semi-final as I was here and was so chuffed to escape hearing the score and watched the game the next morning. It has been, exciting, riveting and interesting tennis to watch and long may it last.
So now my aim is to eventually grab a seat in centre court for one of the big matches ( yeah dream on LOL) so I’m relying on winning the lottery between now and next June!
WISH ME LUCK!
WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE PLAYER FROM YOUR TENNIS ERA?