It’s that time of the year when tennis pros
transcend. Now is the time when the stalwarts of tennis knock off the shoes
that kissed the red clay for ones that can embrace green grass. Players will
willingly put behind the carefully constructed long rallies of the French Open,
which resembled a marathon. At Wimbledon, these rallies would be fast and
abbreviated; it’s time to run the shorter sprints. At the French Open, the main
court was Philippe Chatrier. And at Wimbledon, the British stiff upper lip is
firmly in place even in the way the main court is christened. It’s simply called
the Centre Court. That’s where the champions genuflect. It’s tennis’s Holy
Land. In a few days, about 30,000 kilograms of strawberries would be consumed,
the sky would turn grey and the fans would go hush. As the umpire calls play
and the player tosses the ball up for a serve punctuating that deathly
silence, history will be born. Once again.
