Can a British Tennis player win Wimbledon?
Steven Wells has written a terrific article at Guardian Unlimited:-
"Free tennis for all" : http://sport.guardian.co.uk/wimbledon2003/story/0,13391,989374,00.html
To quote a bit:-
Oh yeah. Tim's NOT going to win. But if he does it's going to be a DISASTER for British tennis. Look, face facts, British tennis is crap. It's a sporting Chernobyl. It's a smug, sterile, mono-cultural, quasi-fascist, casually racist, elitist, snob-ridden, blazer-buggered, apartheid-crippled disaster area. It makes golf look like the Notting Hill carnival. It makes Polo look like a festival of miscegenation. OK, so that last line was total bollocks. But you get the picture.
Like you, I was appalled the facts catalogued in Martin Jaques' brilliant Guardian article about racism in tennis. And I was shocked to learn that a few years ago "a certain British newspaper" pulled out of an interview with the Williams sisters when it realised, at the last moment, that they were black. That's more than just disgusting - it's also indicative of why we're so crap at tennis. Racism and class bias strangles talent in the pram.
So IF Tim Henman wins Wimbledon - what sort of message would that send to those who want to keep tennis nice, middle class and white? It would mean that the pressure for tennis to change - to become both multi-cultural and truly inclusive - would slacken. Inertia, smugness and unexamined privilege would do the rest. And British tennis would slumber on - monocultural, mimsy and mediocre.
The LTA does okay. Look, they're paying their bills. Well, maybe in fact they are making a fortune. I think Wimbledon washes its face in business terms. I wonder how embarrassed they are that year upon year we have a non-British final and that most of the Brits - the few that docompete at all - get blasted off the court in the first few days. Obviously not embarrassed enough to capture and nurture new talent - invest in a few players.
Just a couple of years ago Arvind Parmer was being recognised as a contender with yet more potential to show us. Since then nothing happened, asfar as I can tell. Maybe he just did not deliver the results or could it be that he is just the wrong colour for the LTA to commit to his development?
"Free tennis for all" : http://sport.guardian.co.uk/wimbledon2003/story/0,13391,989374,00.html
To quote a bit:-
Oh yeah. Tim's NOT going to win. But if he does it's going to be a DISASTER for British tennis. Look, face facts, British tennis is crap. It's a sporting Chernobyl. It's a smug, sterile, mono-cultural, quasi-fascist, casually racist, elitist, snob-ridden, blazer-buggered, apartheid-crippled disaster area. It makes golf look like the Notting Hill carnival. It makes Polo look like a festival of miscegenation. OK, so that last line was total bollocks. But you get the picture.
Like you, I was appalled the facts catalogued in Martin Jaques' brilliant Guardian article about racism in tennis. And I was shocked to learn that a few years ago "a certain British newspaper" pulled out of an interview with the Williams sisters when it realised, at the last moment, that they were black. That's more than just disgusting - it's also indicative of why we're so crap at tennis. Racism and class bias strangles talent in the pram.
So IF Tim Henman wins Wimbledon - what sort of message would that send to those who want to keep tennis nice, middle class and white? It would mean that the pressure for tennis to change - to become both multi-cultural and truly inclusive - would slacken. Inertia, smugness and unexamined privilege would do the rest. And British tennis would slumber on - monocultural, mimsy and mediocre.
The LTA does okay. Look, they're paying their bills. Well, maybe in fact they are making a fortune. I think Wimbledon washes its face in business terms. I wonder how embarrassed they are that year upon year we have a non-British final and that most of the Brits - the few that docompete at all - get blasted off the court in the first few days. Obviously not embarrassed enough to capture and nurture new talent - invest in a few players.
Just a couple of years ago Arvind Parmer was being recognised as a contender with yet more potential to show us. Since then nothing happened, asfar as I can tell. Maybe he just did not deliver the results or could it be that he is just the wrong colour for the LTA to commit to his development?
9/7/2005 2:45 PM
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