Rafael Nadal has been seeded lower than Roger Federer at Wimbledon, despite the opposite being true in the world rankings.Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
Like any proper holiday, Wimbledon is a time for everyone to get together and air their grievances.
Bad news. No one has any grievances.
Not that people haven’t tried to find a few in the fallow period leading into the year’s premier tennis tournament.
Isn’t Rafael Nadal (ranked third) furious that Roger Federer (second) has been seeded higher than him in this tournament, despite the opposite being true in the world rankings?
“I respect all the situations,” Nadal said, amidst some low-grade grumbling.
Well then, isn’t defending champion Angelique Kerber upset that all the best women’s players have been wedged into the same quarter of the bracket?
“It doesn’t matter,” Kerber said.
Shouldn’t everyone be irate that the players only get a trifling $63-million in total prize money?
Not anyone that matters. Not out loud in front of a microphone, at any rate. Roger Federer complained about the pay on the Challenger Tour, which is a different thing altogether.
Maybe the rest of them realize that complaining about making a few hundred grand for a week’s work is not going to get you right with the proletariat.
This is what happens when your sport enters a period of sustained stasis. Everything calms right down. Same big names, same winners, same storylines.
A better question might be, is tennis better when it’s boring?
Not boring in the forehands and backhands sense. The sport hasn’t suffered during the late stages of the Federer/Nadal/Serena Williams/Novak Djokovic oligarchy.
But boring in the talking-points sense. Tennis doesn’t have those.
Nobody chatters about tennis the way they might about basketball or boxing or any other sport that manufactures its own dissent. Even Williams – an athlete whose most tossed-off musings created headlines – has slowed her roll.
One suspects Wimbledon itself has something to do with that. No other place on Earth seems so purpose-designed to deflect the tawdriness of gossip.
You walk through the gates on a Sunday and everything is just so. The grounds, the concessions, the flower pots. Even the people are just so.
The security guards look like they summer in the Cotswolds. One of them gives your jean jacket a full up-and-down, “wretched-foreigners” perusal and you feel something like shame. You should’ve packed your lime-green slacks and club blazer.
If you think the 1-per-centers live better than the rest of us, this is the place that proves it. However pristine Wimbledon looks on TV, it is far more so in real life. Cameras cannot capture the sense of … the only word I can think to describe it is “comfort.” Everyone who steps foot on the grounds during the fortnight is, by definition, comfortable. The place is meant to make you feel like one of the coolest kids on the planet.
This is also the unique modern sporting event where top competitors are subsidiary to the organizers.
“[This year] is completely different because you’re coming back as a member,” Kerber gushed of the perk afforded champions. “It’s really special for me.”
Even Augusta National doesn’t expect this level of forelock tugging from its contract workers. Of course, winning Wimbledon is just about the only way you can get into the All England club. They aren’t hurting for applicants.
As such, Wimbledon sets the tone for tennis. And that tone is “Mind your manners.” Djokovic called the tournament “sacred.” That doesn’t just work in his twee, all-living-things-are-bound-together sense. It’s a place where you don’t want to make too much noise.
That wasn’t the case back in the John McEnroe/Jimmy Connors days, but Wimbledon reasserted its authority by leveraging the co-operation of one man – Federer.
Federer continues to lead the pack by example. If most players are at ease in front of a camera, that is because Federer treats the duty lightly. If most speak of Wimbledon as a holy pilgrimage, that’s because Federer does.
And if most are allergic to trash talk or any other sort of pot stirring, that’s also because of Federer. He can be sharp, but Federer will never shiv anyone. More’s the pity.
For a couple of years there was the annual frisson of whether or not this might be Federer’s last go-round. That’s out the window this year.
“I believe I’m at the height of my physical possibilities still,” Federer said in a recent interview.
The Fed abides.
Without that era-shifting tragedy animating proceedings, it’s hard to say what this year’s Wimbledon is about. It isn’t a changing of the guard. The women’s guard has already changed, and the men’s may never.
It isn’t any pressing social issue or grinding controversy. Those have all been steamed out during Federer’s reign of benign reasonableness.
There is always the possibility of some bright, young light pulling a Boris Becker (Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime is the current darling in that regard), but we’ve been down this road too often during the past 15 years to believe before seeing.
So what’s Wimbledon about this year? It’s about Wimbledon. It’s about keeping the most storied global sporting event ticking along silently. It’s about not making a fuss until the trophies are hoisted. It’s about keeping Federer’s and the All England Club’s platonic ideal of tennis alive.
That will have to change sometime. Federer can’t keep those “physical possibilities” going forever. But this sleepy continuity is comforting for now. This place has changed, but not in a while. It maintains a dignity that defies the rumour mill’s need for things to grind.
It’s not a tennis tournament precisely, or even a grand slam. It’s Wimbledon – a thing to itself. The world already has plenty of dumb things athletes said about each other to kvetch over online. But it only has one of those.