WIMBLEDON
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The article by .Mr. Frederic Prokosch, in your issue of July 3rd, is a surprising performance. Sandwiched in between the maunderings of an imaginary old lady and a good- humoured appreciation of the play in the early stages of the Championship Meeting, are a number of insinuations and suggestions which seem to be the product of a diseased imagination. Wimbledon, it appears, " is no longer innocent " : it is " commercialised " : spectators " do not watch for the pleasure of seeing a ball hit cleanly and astutely% " : there is a " mercenary gleam " : among the players there are infinite variations of caste and ambition and more sinister differentia- tions: there is disillusionment in the life of a champion, and his subsequent years are " bleak." All this, so far as it is intelligible at all, is sheer nonsense.
With regard to the spectators, the one difficulty is to restrain them from applauding a brilliant stroke until the end of the rally. When a player, behind in the score, begins to pull up, he is cheered to the echo ; at a critical stage in a match the tension is almost painful. The crowd• is a thoroughly sporting one.
To the players the game is the whole thing, as it always has been. They know, of course, that the game of a first-cliss player is a young man's game, that it is great fun while it lasts, but that there are more important things in life than lawn tennis. The parade at the Jubilee Championship, in 1926, was not one of disillusioned persons ,with sinister differ- entiations—to their numerous friends the idea of their lives, full, prosperous and happy, being " bleak " would have been simply ridiculous.
The position today is the same. I daresay there are excep- tions ; some young men's heads are easily turned. If Vines made the remark quoted by your contributor, it is not the only foolish remark which has been attributed to him. We might well have been spared the cheap sneers about the private morality of players, and the embarrassinents of the amateur's finances.—Yours, &c.,
Previous page
