Strawberries, cream, cucumber sandwiches

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 16

Strawberries, cream, cucumber sandwiches

From

KEN COATES

in London

Wimbledon, on a hot, sunny summer afternoon, can still retain something of the genteel garden party air of lawn tennis 100 years ago. This is in spite of rampant commercialism and tension and excitement as the world’s best duel for the thousands of dollars at stake in sponsored intern national tennis. Every time Bjorn Borg appears to be driven away in a courtesy car, he is mobbed. But thistledown wafts down onto the centre court, and languid ladies with large wide hats stroll to the members’ afternoon tea

enclosure, there to sip tea and munch cucumber sandwiches. Daimlers and Rolls Royces are parked, chaffeurs dozing, outside the gates. A hundred or so hopefuls sprawl along the fence on camp beds. They will wait overnight to pay $3 just to get into the grounds, and fight for standing room only, at one of the minor courts. White-suited gents, collared and tied, gaze down from the members’ refreshment lounge, drinks in hands. They are in the centre court complex, tickets for which range in price from $9 to Sl2 a day — if you can get them. Helpful gentlemen with East End accents outside the gates are delighted to help — for up to <sl2o for a centre court seat. But the unwary can get done: some tickets handed over in this way have unaccountably proved to be for last year. •

Then what looks like a programme can turn out to be a tennis magazine, at $1 a copy, official programme, 60 cents.

In the stadium, changing rooms still ate either “ladies” or "gentlemen’s” and the link with the past is personified by the umpires. Distinguished, grey, military-looking chaps, rather stiff in the joints and not as eagle-eyed as they might be. But they keep the score — “thirtay,” “fortay,” and “jawce” — with unruffled calm, sometimes losing the score in a lapse of memory. Once, so it’s said, a man on line duty snoozed off.

The “Superbrat.” John McEnroe, irreverently has said he thinks they are too old — but no-one takes too much notice. After all, old chap, he’s American, and dashed young.

One ’ cannot attend Winjbledon without sampling a dish of strawberries and cream. A dish of seven to 10, with cream and sugar, costs $l.BO, .or about 20 cents a berry. In the street markets, "they are selling at 60 cents for 100 grams, or less. There is beer under the stand — at $1.12 a pint (76 cents for the same brew in the pub across the road) and a ham sandwich for 96 cents.

And for those who are lucky enough to want to celebrate, a wine, nonvintage champagne, $3 a glass. Wimbledon is big business. Souvenirs abound: Wimbledon T-shirts at $5 each. Wimbledon key-rings at .80 cents-; Wimbledon

tankards . . . the list is endless. But for only 50 cents you can “keep your bottom soft” with a cushion. And if you’re short of cash, there’s a bank under the centre court where they are only too pleased to cash a cheque. Still, the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum fit worth the $1 admission. There you can ponder the greats. There’s a lifesize dummy of the French star, Suzanne Lenglen, dressed by Teddy Tinling in a daring one-piece cotton frock and silk cardigan. She played like a ballet dancer delivering sizzling shots as she danced. There is also an original “sphairistike” portable court set. Major Walter Wingfield, self-styled inventor of the game, tried to patent it in 1874. The name means "ball game” in Classical Greek, but was changed to lawn tennis after it was suggested few would be able to pronounce it let alone spell it.