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NZ tennis players, like Brett Steven, know short = sweet!
As we turn up the radio coverage of Andy Murray playing Andy Roddick in today’s Wimbledon Semi-Final, I have a confession to make.
I have very mixed feelings about tennis. Basically, I find it inexorably dull. However, I can handle watching matches where one player absolutely whips the pants off another – like when Venus Williams beat Dinara Safina earlier in the week – because it means the games are really short (53 minutes).
What I cannot stand is a) actually caring whether one of the players wins (and therefore being emotionally involved) AND b) the game taking a long, long time to play. Andy Murray requiring five sets and four hours to win against Stanislas Wawrinka in the fourth round of Wimbledon would, therefore, have been an excruciatingly painful experience … had I been watching it. (I wasn’t.)
With cricket, you know you’re in for the long haul, and can gear up accordingly. You know it will take all day (or five days) to play so you don’t feel the need to stay glued to the radio or TV. You can go to the loo, or to the fridge for another beer, fairly safe in the knowledge that the game won’t be over by the time you get back.
But tennis. Well. The shortest Wimbledon match ever involved one of my Kiwi compatriots – Brett Steven – who put his back out in the first rally of a doubles match in 1995, thus ending the game after mere seconds. Compare this to the game Todd Perry and Simon Aspelin had against Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in 2006, where they lost the Wimbledon doubles quarter final 5-7 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 23-21, after being on court for six hours and seven minutes. That’s just ridiculous.
And now I find myself tuning in to Murray and wanting him to win. If I hear the words ‘tie-break’, ‘7-6’ or ‘sixth set’ within the next one to six hours I shall scream.