I’ve been so busy this week, I haven’t had time to even mention Wimbledon. Not only the finest tennis tournament in the world, but more importantly, the only one which really matters. Ok, the only one I ever bother watching. And I do watch it. I would say ‘religiously’ but me and religion enjoy a relationship that such a statement would immensely downplay the importance of Wimbledon in my life. I play tennis all the time but the only I time I want to watch it is there. Or ‘there’ on tv. I think that when the grass there went green, in about 1973, when we got our first colour tv, that became the definition of the sport. And even though I play on ‘hard courts’, they’re also green now, just so as not to confuse me.

I find the French open too boring, the American too American and the Aussie too late. But like Goldilocks, Wimbledon is just perfect.

The tennis has been spectacular. The problem is; the people playing it.

There’s no longer any ‘stand out’ characters. They’re all a bit dull. The shouters, the screamers (I don’t mean whilst hitting the ball, that’s really never a good thing), the late-night partyers, the wild ones, the funny ones, they’ve all gone in the name of sponsorships. “Here’s 5 million quid a year for wearing a white hat. But if you act naughty we take it back. Not the hat, they’re useless, the 5 mil”.

So in the absence of any discernible personality, we need to judge our favourites in other ways. And being humans, we do that predominantly by how they look. We can’t help it. We take one look at Roger Federer and we love him forever. I can never forget Gabriella Sabatini; who never won anything but looked so gorgeous whilst losing that no-one cared. Anna Kournikova, similarly, beautiful. Hence loved.

Then you get Novak Djokovic. Possibly the best player EVER!! But no-one likes him. Because he looks like he’s sinister, nasty and sneery, even if he isn’t. Nor does it matter. He looks a bit evil so the world collectively will always ‘support’ whoever he’s playing.

Until Thursday night. When he played Yannik Sinner. And no-one in Centre Court knew who to hate more. We (the tennis fans of the world) have finally found a worthy successor to Djokovic. Not in a good way. Like Djok, Sinner is spectacularly good at tennis. In fact, he’s the world number one. And would be totally dominant if not for pesky little Spaniard called Alcaraz, who is universally loved and keeps beating Sinner in the big events. And hopefully will do so this afternoon.

What do I have against Sinner? Well, for starters… actually nothing. Nothing you can explain. It’s the Germanic look. The pale, almost vampirish appearance. The ‘buttoned up’ Germanic manner. In short ‘I don’t like the cut of his jib’. No idea what a ‘jib’ might be but the message is clear.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx