by Pete Bodo
Well, Wimbledon is almost over. It was a good week for me, spent in a flat with El Jon Wertheim and the gifted Sports Illustrated photographer, Simon Bruty. For a host of reasons, starting with the aesthetic appeal of grass courts populated by players in predominantly white, even when they're not (does anyone glow quite like Venus Williams, when you combine her white kit, dark skin, and grass closer in color to honeydew melon than everyday turf?).
Another thing I love about Wimbledon is that it has been slowly built into something that's far more than a sprawling sports venue. The facility is built into the lap of a gentle, curving hill, and the All-England Club has used its geography cleverly. While the south end of the grounds is dominated by the Centre Court and the new No. 2 court, the north end is far more striking and a times almost magical. Forget Court no. 1 - it's a run-of-the-mill sports stadium, albeit nicely done. The great bits are Henman Hill (I'm so glad this "Murray Mound" thing didn't catch on; it should now and forevermore bear Henman's name), and Court 18, both of which are carved into the base of the larger hiill rising behind them.
Every other Grand Slam venue is situated on a level plane, and each has appealing properties. But Wimbledon has an intimacy none of the others can match. It seems like an enchanted village (and thank God they kept those absurd thatched-roofed picnic tables at the Pergola Cafe), or perhaps a sanotorium for the incurably tennis afflicted. At what other event can you walk from one to court to another through a freakin' arbor?
Then there's the actual village of Wimbledon, perched high atop the curving hill but to the south of the club. You can almost see the club from the village. As must of you know, many of us, including almost all the main draw players, rent apartments and houses in the village or on the steep grade leading down to the club. I tweeted the other day that the real heart of Wimbledon isn't Centre Court, but the Starbucks on the High Street in the village.
Well, everyone seems to go there (even though the viral outbreak of boutique coffee shops has practically swept the street clean of everything but ventis, pain au chocolate, chai tea and frothy mochachinnos with whipped cream and a squiggle of caramel for a cap). And Starbucks is open for business for more of the day than the AEC. If you're a player, you can make an appearance at the Starbucks even if you've lost a match and are out of the draw.
If you staked out the Starbucks on any given day during the tournament, you'd rub elbows with more players, including a load of former Grand Slam champions, than anywhere else, ever. Plus their coaches, wives, girlfriends (in case the wife declined to make the trip), children and nannnies. Everyone is your neighbor, and there's far less autograph-hunting and player-hassling than you might think. It's as if the village is a celebrity DMZ, with an uneasy truce between fans and players.
The village is an endlessly amusing place. It reminds me of that child's board game, Candyland. There's barely a straight or flat street, and the village is flush with roundabouts (mini-traffic circles). It's an altogeher excellent place to get plastered to the grille of a milk delivery truck. But despite the narrow roads (often flanked by long stretches of 10-foot tall stone walls,with a little ribbon of sidewalk that makes you feel like you're a tightrope walker alongside the whizzing taxis and sedans). Still, you see lots of folks on bicycles, including the elderly. I always expect to see said milk truck take out some tweed-jacketed classics professor pedaling his three speed. And I imagine the gent, bleeding profusely, would pick up his mangled bike and tuck it under his arm, tap out his pipe, and call out, "So sorry, nothing to worry about, it's merely a flesh wound!"
The village seems in some ways a smug, superior place, just up the hill (on the far side) from the town of Wimbledon, with its bustling tube and bus stations, budget boutiques, discarded candy-bar wrappers and assorted transient riff-raff. It's as if all the grimy elements of suburban life had washed down into the hollow, leaving the village atop the hill a place of idyllic tranquility and prosperity.The only real exception, ambiance-wise are the two major pubs where randy youth of either gender spill into the street in huge numbers, clutching pints of beer in one hand and cigarettes in the other. They make quite a ruckus, after a long day spent working various thirsts up on Henman Hill. The locals must hate it.
A remarkable number of homes near the center of the village sit behind walls or similar barriers, shutting out the world, the BMWs, Mercedes's, Land Rovers and Audis (the brand of choice for the non-ostentatious and practical) ready to go behind huge wooden, electrically-operated gates.
In addition to the proliferation of coffee boutiques, the village has Jeeves-ian dry cleaners, jewelry shops and baby boutiques where you can buy a $150 USD one-zee that your infant is guaranteed to puke all over within 10 minutes of putting it on. This is Housewives of Wimbledon territory, although the tall, ample-bosomed, peaches-and-cream complected mostly blonde lasses would never stop as low as reality TV.
The Candyland layout militates against straightforward addresses, like 134 Maple Street: everything seems to be a garden, a close, a rectory, a mews, a walk, a lane. . . a ramble, a rumble, a bumble and a stumble. One passageway that looks suspiciously like what, in less fancy surroundings, might be called an alley. Except, you see, it has this ancient, rickety-turnstile (which you can step around easily on either side, unless you have your heart set on pushing your way through)and the nameplate: Dairy Walk.
One recent morning, on the 5-minute walk from our Church Road flat to the Starbucks, I bumped into Peter Smylie, who's married to that delightful former Aussie player, Liz. Then Ken Meyerson, Andy Roddick's manager. Todd Martin passed me in the street going the other way, as did Tony Godsick (Roger Federer's manager), Ilona Kloss, Kevn Curren and Ilona Kloss, the former South African player and Billie Jean King's partner as well as the obligatory gaggle of juniors. Back at the flat (it's one of nice U-shaped complex with perhaps 12 three-story units), neighbors Brad Gilbert and Chris Fowler of ESPN were just leaving for the Wimbledon grounds. They said they saw me in the village.
Last night, we ate again at the Zero-Quattro, an upscale Italian joint (ESPN's Matt Wilansky, whose job is to make live living hell for the likes of Greg Garber, Kamakshi Tandon and Ravi Ubha, picked up the tab - thanks!).
The only notable there was Charlie Ferguson, who I hear is some kind of soccer coach.
Enjoy the tennis, everyone. We have an early flight out tomorrow, so if I don't get a chance to say adios and thanks, I'm saying it now. I'll have a Crisis Center post up about an hour before the match.