The most boring sporting event on Earth

It's tough luck for Mark Philippoussis, but otherwise a great relief all around that it is over for another year. Wimbledon fortnight, that is - the most boring sporting event on Earth. Two weeks of wall-to-wall tedium, the only excitement coming when they pull the covers over when rain stops play.

What brings people to it? After all, unrelieved boredom does not exactly come cheap. A seat can cost you as much as $175, while souvenirs such as baseball caps (especially designed to be worn backwards) can cost $45. A towel could set you back about $70.

One reason for Wimbledon's popularity could be that British people lead such exciting lives, always zinging about - here, there and everywhere - that a good dose of tedium is just what the doctor ordered to slow them all down a bit.

Then again, it could be that they are more interested in having first-hand experience of such never ending tennis soap operas as At Home with the Dokics; or perhaps checking out whatever bizarre attire the Williams sisters have shoe-horned themselves into for the day's match.

There is one really entertaining thing about Wimbledon fortnight: the chance to eat strawberries and cream. It is simple, uncomplicated fare. A serving will cost you about $5 for 10 strawberries, so it is sort of reasonably priced.

A bit of trivia: About 27,000 kilos of strawberries are scoffed during a Wimbledon fortnight. If we subtract two rest days, and assume that they sell strawberries for six hours on every play day, then punters are downing strawberries at the rate of about six kilograms a minute.

Meanwhile, back at Centre Court, we are forced to ask if anything can be done to make grand slam tennis interesting. Apparently not. But here are some suggestions for spicing it up a bit:

1. Use smaller racquets. Something about the size of a ping-pong bat should suffice, and each player only gets one per match. If it is broken, players must use their hand, or whatever else they can find.

3. Wash players' mouths out with soap and then send them home if they question any line call or the umpire's decision.

4. Make the nets higher - say, about three metres, and in the form of a hedge or a brick wall so that players don't know what's coming at them.

5. Have two balls in play at the same time for singles matches, and four for doubles matches to keep them all on their toes.

There may be another answer. The name of the club that runs the tournament is The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

What if they just concentrated on the croquet? Two weeks of retired vicars playing knock-down, drag-out, winner-take-all croquet with strawberries and cream thrown in - now that would really get your pulse racing.

[A monologue, read by Michael Flanders.]

The Tooley Street branch of the musician's union says he has to have a tea break. Would you please imagine that I'm wearing a blue blazer, and a white hat; that I'm sitting at the top of a short step-ladder. It's summer.

[pop!] [pop!] [pop!]
Wimbledon.
[pop!]
June.
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Ladies' singles.
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Third round.
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Ballboys are bounding all over the ground. Play started at two, and we're still on the rack; a-quarter-to-five, and they've hardly begun. A perfect defense,
[pop!]
meets a perfect attack. [pupe!]
Miss L. Hammerfest... meets Miss J. Hunter-Dunn. Game to Miss Hunter-Dunn. Miss Hammerfest leads by two games to one in the third set, having won the first by eighteen games to sixteen, lost second twenty-five to twenty-seven.

I never LIKED tennis! Damn silly name for a game with its volleys and loves and all that. The first time I umpired was June of '36 -- I didn't think much of it THEN. Just rather fancied myself in the HAT. Since then I have umpired again,
[pop!]
and again,
[pop!]
and again,
[pop!]
and year after year as I've sat on court after court I've been struck by the thought they are BASHING a BALL with the GUT of a CAT.

What a sport... You may think it's tedious seen from down there -- it's LUDICROUS seen from ABOVE! Fifteen/Love!
[pop!]
Keeping my eye firmly fixed on the ball, hoping the linesman will know what to call... Fifteen/All!
[pop!]
As each long, drawn-out point, throws my neck out of joint! What a job, set-after-set. Oh, the relief when you get the occasional lob...
[pop!]
A-h-h-hh... 'Till they SMASH it.
[pupe-ps-s-s-s-s-ss-ooh]
Oh, dash it!

Thirty/Fifteen! What does it all mean?
[pop!]
Forty/Fifteen! Why thirty/fifteen; why forty/fifteen? What if, instead, I just said ONE/nothing, TWO/nothing, THREE/nothing, and GAME? Do just the same; some of the debenture-holders be bound to get shirty.
[pop!]
Forty/Thirty!
[pop!]
And now the spectators are trickling out; there's thunder about -- with luck, it will RAIN. That aught to reduce...
[pop!]
Deuce! Half of me bored.
[pop-ptptptptpttt]
Net cord! The other half nervous... First service! Wish it were dinner... Thank God, a winner! Advantage, Miss Hammerfest!

[pop!]
Bonk.
[pop!]
Bink.
[pop!]
Bonk.
[pop!]
Bink.

Drives you to DRINK. Sitting up here, I'm obsessed with the fear of getting it WRONG, with everybody else will be going "bonk, bink ;" I shall be going "bink, bonk!" Oh, DO get it over-with; what is the use! Oh, we're back again...

Deuce! Wimbledon. June. Ladies' Singles. Third Round. Groundsmen are asked, "How's the state of the ground?" Players are photographed jumping the nets. But here sits a figure one always forgets. The Umpire... upon whom... the sun... never sets!

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