Rain falls mainly on the playin'
LONDON -- When Dr. Henry Jones decided that England, thus the world, should have something new called a tennis tournament, why in the name of Jupiter Pluvius did he select the only tropical rain forest in the Northern Hemisphere as the location?
That would be Wimbledon, of course. It was 1877, and 21 men showed up to try their hands at the recently introduced game. The Monday final was rained out. Imagine that. Since the weather wasn't much better for three days, they played the title match on a very damp Thursday.
Shouldn't that have tipped off Jones and his cronies at the All England Club that their London neighborhood attracted more water than the Nile Delta. Instead of wisely moving their tournament to Death Valley in 1922, the Clubbies chose the present site only 2 miles distant. Immediately, so much rain visited that the tourney finished four days late.
What do you expect from a rain forest?
Nothing much has changed. So here we are, 2007, with rain delays mounting into double figures, wondering if this edition of The Lawn Tennis Championships ever will conclude. Maybe it'll simply blend into the concurrent Henley Regatta?
Six of the first eight days were drenchers, with more to come, according to the weather bureau, making a mess of the planet's most prominent tournament -- "ghastly," says referee Andrew Jarrett, 64 matches behind schedule. The daily deluges have increased. Six downpouring interruptions during yesterday's start-stop-start-stop frustration caused the 2002 champ, Aussie Lleyton Hewitt, to say, after at last completing a three-day third-round win: "That's the longest and toughest rain-delay match I've ever had to put up with. To go on and off so many times -- I'm not sure how many -- was a mental battle more than anything else." He finally won it over Argentine Guillermo Canas, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 , 6-4, a match begun in June that ended in July.
Luckier in weathering just one delay, but unlucky in the persistence of her 18-year-old opponent, the queen -- Amelie Mauresmo -- was dead at 2:19 p.m. Done in by a blond Czech trained in Florida, Nicole Vaidisova, 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-1, '06 champ Mauresmo, who had three set points in the breaker, succinctly described the match with an expletive.
On and off constantly went the tarpaulins, called covers here. The grounds crew felt like maids changing sheets in a cheap motel.
"Keep your eye on the ball," a tennis axiom, was amended to "Keep your eye on the sky." Fearsome shades of black and purple clouds predominated. Periodically, they spilled over, the last time closing the proceedings at 7:30, sending home dauntless British devotees, who had toughed it out, hanging on, chilled and mildewed, despite seeing little tennis. Of the 32,022 who showed up, a goodly number had waited in line to get in, and many stood to watch. Even though they don't have any players, they're the champion fans.
During one spirited shower, accompanied by lightning and thunder, an announcement was made, urging customers to put down their umbrellas, which could be lightning rods.
Thus, they were given a choice between absorbing a soaking and catching pneumonia, or electrocution.
The beguiling Serbian teenager Ana Ivanovic, French Open finalist, started sweetly, lost her concentration in a shower, returned to recover, and then had to leave again before beating Russian Nadia Petrova, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4. She said, "I got ahead, 5-4, with serve, and looked at the sky. It was all dark. I was like, 'Is it going to hold?' No. At 15-all, we had to leave again. I came back nervous [after a 90-minute intermission]. But so was she, and I made it" -- with a ripping forehand closer.
Poor Rafael Nadal remains stranded, toiling for the fourth day in a third-rounder against Swede Robin Soderling. Locked in the fifth set, they played to 4-4. Nadal lost a service-break lead and squirmed out of two break points to 4-3. Even worse off in the third round is the young Serbian whiz, Novak Djokovic, deadlocked at 1-1 in sets with Nicolas Kiefer.
Meanwhile the champ, Roger Federer, is a layabout, vegetating high and dry. He hasn't played since Friday, yet is ahead of the field in the quarterfinals, courtesy of a default from injured Tommy Haas.
Americans -- meaning a trio, the Sisters Williams and Andy Roddick -- have a chance to make it a blazing Fourth of July. Roddick opens with a 6-2, 6-5 continuation lead over Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, a fourth-rounder. Following are Venus against Maria Sharapova in a fourth-rounder, then Serena against No. 1 Justine Henin in a quarterfinal.
They are advised to bring a good book (perhaps "War and Peace") for downtime between torrents, and possibly water wings. You can see why the cautious All England Clubbies at long last have conceded that their tournament is in the wrong place, and will have a sliding roof on Centre Court by 2009. Why is it taking so long?
Oh well. Blame it on Dr. Henry Jones, who thought the original tournament would be just ducky in a tropical rain forest. 