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Henmania no more
By Will 3 months ago, No Comments; be the first!
Regular readers will know of my unashamed (yet entirely unreasonable) dislike of Henmania and the man behind it all. It’s not that our Tim was no good. He was very good indeed, but he chose the biggest matches to completely and utterly bottle it. This is my frustration. Here was a middle-class, quietly spoken, affable sort of chap with the limpest “come on!” gesture in tennis, and one of the best volleyists in the game, who on occasion made your Dad look really very good with a racquet in his hands.
Anyway, I’m delighted to hear our Tim is back on our screens under the guise of a commentator. Oh good. Not content with boring us with his only-occasional excellence on the court, we’re now victim to his banal (and, so far at least) and extremely dull opinions off it. At least McEnroe shoots from the hip. Our Tim hasn’t got a hip to shoot from, let alone a gun.
Worst of all, we are denied one of summer’s greatest sights: our Tim’s dad, snoozing and clearly roaringly drunk in the box. That, and our Tim’s lovely wife (whose family happen to “holiday” in the village my Mum lives in. They don’t much like the pub, apparently).
No Comments »We have no right to complain
By Will 3 months ago, 4 Comments »
I’ve just returned from the beach, where I have mostly been lounging for the past few days, and thought I’d watch Queen’s. Summer and tennis go hand-in-hand, never more so than when you’re not working, but I’ve only managed to last eight minutes. The match hasn’t even begun, even - but if I have to listen to these mindless imbeciles commentate, I might just put my foot through the TV.
We have absolutely no right to complain about our cricket commentators. I’m sure you all have your favourites, and you certainly will have the odd one or two who make your ears bleed, but on the whole we’re extremely lucky. They’re knowledgeable, interesting, sometimes witty and decent. None of that can be said of tennis commentators, all of whom seem to have fake mid-Atlantic accents which make Lloyd Grossman’s dulcet tones palatable.
“He’s not only a great player - he’s a great guy.” Oh do climb out of their arses, for the love of god.
4 Comments »Tiger Tim no more
By Will last year, at the end of August, No Comments; be the first!
I hear Tim Henman is to retire from Tennis. Apparently, it “wasn’t a difficult decision to make”. Well, we could have told you that Tim. He was a brilliant player to watch - his duels against Pete ‘The Ape’ Sampras were particularly memorable - but ultimately he wasn’t much of a winner. And he never quite nailed that fist-clenching “come on” but we’ll forgive all his losses for having such an attractive wife.
No Comments »Federer turns to cricket
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of December, No Comments; be the first!
Tennis’s biggest winner, Roger Federer, has visited Tamil Nadu in Cuddalore, India, which was devastated two years ago by the Tsunami.
In the Pudupettai rehabilitation colony, 180 km south of Chennai, the state capital, hundreds watched the improvised cricket game played on an old red coir mat that was placed on a makeshift pitch.
“It was good fun playing cricket here,” Federer on a two-day UNICEF trip to the region, told Reuters after knocking a few balls that drew huge applause from tsunami survivors.
“I know the sport is huge here. I follow it myself,” said Federer, whose mother is South African.
“In the beginning they threw the ball at me slowly, and then realised that I was not that bad after all.
Tennis v Cricket
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of June, 2 Comments »
I was pretty fuming yesterday. I got back in time to see Tim Henman play his first game at Wimbledon, and it was the same old story. Woeful tennis for the most part, eventually crawling his way back to defeat. I follow most sports, and enjoy the two weeks of Wimbledon - but I have no respect for “tiger Tim,” who is (surely) aptly named after the Bangladeshi cricket team. He’s Britain’s best player - of that there is no doubt - but how depressing that that’s the best we can do. Come on Andrew Murray, about time we had a tougher opponent to cheer.
Anyway, one of the commentators said how “wonderful” this British sporting summer is. He mentioned Jenson Button possibly winning Silverstone; the Lions defeating New Zealand (unlikely) and Henman making the Wimbledon final (come off it). But failed to mentioned the biggest sporting even of the summer, The Ashes. I know, it’s not a big thing - but it infuriates me how certain people in the sporting media in this country seemingly ignore cricket. The Ashes is one of (if not THE) oldest international sporting contests in the world - I just pray it gets the coverage and attention it deserves. And, on a selfish “cricket is better than tennis” note, to think anyone would rather watch Tim Henman than Australia v England…well it doesn’t bear thinking about!
2 Comments »