LONDON—It’s July 4th here, rather than the grander-sounding 4th of July, or Independence Day, as it’s known in my country. On this day in 1776, the United States broke away from England; 241 years later, everyone seems ready to break away from everyone else—the red states from the blue states in the U.S., the Brits from the rest of Europe over here.
What does geo-politics have to do with tennis, you ask? I mention it because while flipping through the Daily Mail’s copious tennis coverage on Tuesday morning, I came across this memorable phrase, which was said by a losing player to his opponent on the hallowed lawns of Wimbledon on Monday:
DUDE, DON’T TALK TO ME
Can there be a more fitting slogan for our era? Yes, the words were uttered by Denis Shapovalov, an 18-year-old in a backwards baseball cap, but don’t they sum up exactly what you’re thinking most of the time? Though I guess the fact that they came from a Canadian—i.e., one of the civilized ones—should make us a little alarmed.
Shapovalov hasn’t been the only person saying and doing things at Wimbledon, of course. Here’s a look at how the London papers saw Day 1.