Problems of playing in another postcode
There is always a curious diffidence about the first half of the grass-court season. They play tennis on the green stuff for a scant four weeks, and half of that takes place in London SW19. But before that we have the fascinating excuse-me waltz of the prep tournaments.
The first bunch of them ends this weekend at the Queen’s Club in West London, Halle in Germany and Birmingham. And for those still involved, it is hard to know how to play them. After all, you don’t go looking for a bar-room brawl a week before you contest the world heavyweight championship. A top player, one who is aiming to advance deep into the second week of Wimbledon, will play these tournaments, not in search of a result, but to get the feel of the grass, to get the hands and the feet in rhythm.
But you don’t want to play your guts out and leave your best tennis in the wrong London suburb. So the semis and the finals of these tournaments tend to be guarded, clipped affairs, in which defeat is no catastrophe and victory no great triumph. Sport is normally played in the present tense; this is sport played in the future.
Both types of agnostics see the light
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If you love cricket but have reservations about Twenty20, you will have found yourself, almost despite yourself, watching the World Twenty20 being played out in this country. And if you don’t really care for cricket but have a taste for sport, you’ll have been tuning in just for the hell of it.
Both classes of person, with equal reluctance, will have found more to enjoy than they bargained for. The cricket agnostic will have found pleasure in the biffing and the banging and in the sudden shifts of fortune; the cricket-loving Twenty20 agnostic will
have noticed that, despite its outlandishness, this form of cricket is like every other, in that the best way to win is to take wickets and build batting partnerships.
Twenty20 is good fun, and fun is where sport begins. It is also played with marvellous intensity, and seriousness of purpose is where sport continues. Strange, though: the maverick hitters have become conventional and conventional batsmen have become curious eccentrics. And it turns out to be all about spinners and real wicketkeepers; what purist could fail to approve?
Richards can put wind up Ohuruogu
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The athletics season is beginning to get serious. It is all building up to the World Championships in Berlin in August and it is time for contenders to get down to business. They have a chance to do exactly that at the Golden League meeting in Berlin tomorrow, and Sanya Richards is the one to look out for. Her performance there will have serious implications, even if viewed from a purely parochial standpoint.
The American was fastest in qualifying for the 400 metres at the Olympic Games in Beijing last year but suffered an attack of Olympic lunacy, went out of the blocks too fast and was caught — by Christine Ohuruogu, of Great Britain. That’s the 400 metres for you, a sprint that’s just that little bit too far to sprint.
Many rate Richards as the more talented athlete and the more graceful runner; Ohuruogu in full flow does tend to look a bit like Marcel Marceau’s mime of a man walking against the wind. If Richards can run to her full potential, Ohuruogu will need to improve if she is to stay on top of the world. A season-long duel begins now.