Why Wimbledon is the best Grand Slam for me: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and the 2008 championship point that introduced me to joy of tennis on grass
The weather in London has affected the 2024 Wimbledon Championships' outdoor schedule, disappointing the players and tennis fans alike. The unavoidable situation sends me back to my salad days when the rain would often spoil my happiness in a similar fashion.
Growing up, the playgrounds meant the world to me and I’m certain they did the same to most sports-loving kids. I bloomed at a time when the phrase ‘blue tick’ would have been a fitting set of words me and my friends could use to suggest the sky was clear for us to play.
When it rained, television used to be my best bet. I would switch on the bulky cathode-ray tube placed on a wobbly wooden table inside and lay across two-thirds of the bed, tuned in while it poured outside. I cherished Tom and Jerry but not while cricket or football was on.
One fine Saturday, however, I pressed some buttons on the remote control I didn't intend to and a tennis broadcast flashed on the screen. Immediately proceeding to correct my mistake, I was interrupted by my mother, who was sorting through her wardrobe.
“Who’s playing?” she asked.
“Huh,” I replied.
“Who’s playing?” she repeated.
“I don't know, Ma,” I answered.
“Try reading the scoreboard…,” she suggested.
“M Shara...pova and A Ivanoi...vic, A Ivanovic,” I spoke while struggling with the syllables.
“Oh, I know Sharapova… but who’s the other one?” she wondered.
“How would I know, Ma,” I said.
“Which tournament?” she asked.
“How would -”
“Shush! Look, it’s written on the court. Melbourne, it’s the Australian Open,” she said.
“Court? They’re playing in front of a judge?” I enquired.
“The playing area in tennis is called the court,” she clarified.
“Court… hmm… but why is it blue Ma? What playing area is blue?” I argued.
“Indoors can be blue son… but look, so much has changed,” she reminisced.
I probably saw my mother’s eyes lit up and for a while, I believe, I forgot what I wanted to watch as I was pulled by what was on her mind.
“Steffi used to be my favorite,” she said beaming.
“Steffi…,” I pondered.
“Steffi Graf,” she said.
“It's stopped raining, I’m going Ma,” I said, disrupting the conversation as tennis didn’t look like a sport to me with so much of blue.
“Where?” she asked.
“Ground,” I shouted while hopping across the veranda.
“Come back before your Papa gets home,” she shouted back.
“Ok,” I agreed.
“And when will you remove your New Year decor? The 2,0,0,8 are still on your wall,” she screamed.
“Later Ma,” I yawped while jetting off.
As I ran toward the playground, I wondered how anyone could play on blue ground. It felt odd to my pre-teen brain as I had lived all the years till then playing on either the grass or dirt. The experience on dirt was equally fun but always had an unpleasant ending that I will detail later.
Every time a day at school felt too long, I would wish for at least one teacher’s absence from the schedule and that the substitute teacher be the one responsible for physical education because he would take the whole class out to the vast and grassy ground of the campus to exercise, train, or play in the best-case scenario.
Furthermore, every time I finished my homework after school on a weekday, I would be allowed some hours of respite, rejoicing and rejuvenation in a park across the street.
Also, some of the better memories of my childhood are the ones I created by playing cricket or football with my brothers, and sometimes sisters too, in the green backyard of my house. The joy would make us forget the clock.
So, the idea of having fun meant playing, and playing, in turn, had grass attached to it. Therefore, a kid like me instinctively ripened with love for the surface.
Months after my first exposure to tennis, I landed on another telecast of the sport on a rainy Sunday evening. This time, however, the playing area was verdant and that drew me, even though my tennis-loving mother was not around.
“R Feder…er, Federer and R Nadal,” I read the names on the scoreboard.
The court had no city names and before I could get a hold of things, the guy with longer hair collapsed on the ground and the stadium erupted. I figured he won as his pretty-faced opponent looked sad.
On the recurring replays of the championship point rally, I saw the two players running on a surface similar to the ground, the park and the backyard I always played in.
Celebrations followed, but as both were in white, I couldn’t distinguish who was who until I heard the announcer saying:
“Ladies and gentlemen, to the runner-up, Roger Federer.”
The announcement helped me infer Nadal had defeated Federer. The rest I knew nothing about but the spectacle looked habitual. The activities matched the gaiety of an annual sports day of my school. A table with trophies set up in the middle of a lush piece of land and a guest felicitating the podium finishers at the conclusion.
Intrigued, I ran to my father who was mowing the backyard.
“Papa do you know about tennis?” I asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Do you know R Federer?” I asked.
“Yes, why?”
“He lost,” I informed him.
“Roger Federer lost. To whom?”
“R Nadal,” I answered.
“Oh… Wimbledon final,” he noted.
“Wimbledon...,” I wondered.
“Yes, Wimbledon.”
“What is Wimbledon?” I asked.
“Wimbledon is a tennis tournament, a Grand Slam,” he answered.
“Grand Slam...,” my confusion doubled.
“There are four Grand Slams son... Australian Open, French Open, US Open and Wimbledon, that's the one you just watched,” he explained.
“Australian Open, yes, I know,” I recalled.
“You know,” he said with uncertainty.
“Yes, Ma told me, Australian Open, but that was on blue ground, why was the ground blue and not like Wimbledon, Papa?”
“We can discuss this after dinner, you see, I need to finish with the grass before your mother gets back from the market,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said disappointedly before starting to walk away.
“Never mind, come here,” he shouted.
“Yes,” I walked up to him.
“See, the four Grand Slams I told you about - two of them, Australian Open and US Open, are played on hard courts, the blue ones. Then there is the French Open... that's played on dirt, and Wimbledon on grass,” he stated.
“Oh, so we can have Wimbledon here too, we have grass!” I exclaimed.
“Sure son, now get back to your room,” he suggested with a smile.
“But I've never played on blue ground, it has always been grass or soil, why?” I argued.
My father, I assume, didn't have a logical answer to that so he came up with:
“Because that's what good boys do, they stay close to mother nature, the grass is natural, the soil is natural, you play there because you're a good boy.”
The aforesaid words must have brought a smile to my face but I wasn't done yet.
“So Federer is not a good boy then, he lost Wimbledon, the grass rejected him?” I questioned.
“Federer too is a good boy son, don’t worry, he has won at Wimbledon a lot already and he can win it next year,” he said after a chuckle.
'Why Wimbledon and not Roland Garros if the dirt was as joyful as grass'
Let’s get back to playing on the dirt. Yes, I enjoyed my time there as well. As a matter of fact, I might have eaten some dirt as a child, but all of it never ended on a pleasant note. Whenever I came home after having a good time in the dirt, I received an earful from my mother.
“What were you doing… rolling on the ground? Who’s going to wash all your dirty clothes? The machine will not remove this filth, I’ll have to do it with my hands… can you stop making my job tougher? Oh my god, what is that around your mouth? Did you eat it? Okay, mister, you’re grounded,” she would say.
These episodes happened enough times behind the closed doors of my house leading me to eventually distance myself from the soil similar to the one at Roland Garros.
Hence, I waited for the next Wimbledon, and as my father had mentioned, Roger Federer did it. It was his sixth triumph, I heard from the commentators.
A couple of days later, I read a newspaper article about two sisters – Serena Williams and Venus Williams – and how the younger one prevailed over the other in the women’s final on Centre Court. I used to beat my older siblings in cricket similarly in my backyard.
In 2010, I watched both finals witnessing Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal’s crownings. I was convinced that these few players were the best as they had taken turns to win Wimbledon, which was all the tennis for me.
But in 2011, I saw some unfamiliar faces at the summit. Maria Sharapova, someone I had heard of, was there but so was Petra Kvitova, who ended up winning the coveted Wimbledon title.
On the men’s side, there was Nadal who looked invincible, the only guy, I knew, to better the king of grass, Federer, on grass. But his opponent, Novak Djokovic, busted my bubble.
A few weeks later, I found out the two were squaring off again, in the final of the US Open. There, I saw Djokovic beat Nadal one more time and since then, I’ve followed the Serb through every Grand Slam.
And after having watched so much tennis over the years I've learned that every match matters, let alone a Grand Slam tournament. The ones because of whom I fell in love with the sport wouldn’t be as great if only Wimbledon existed.
Djokovic isn’t all about his exploits at the Australian Open, nor is Nadal all defined by his dominance at the French Open, nor is Federer the epitome of elegance because of his mastery only at Wimbledon, nor is Serena the ray of hope for her history only at the US Open.
These giant events bring greatness to the player and thrill to the fans in equal amounts. The trophies, the prize money, and the stadiums are second to none but my argument in Wimbledon's favor is simple — the majority of the children who had an average childhood like me wouldn't have seen synthetic playing surfaces before turning five at the least.
The imprint that the rural playgrounds have left on my young mind can't be erased for an eternity. Tennis at Wimbledon, in its true sense, is sports on grass, a surface I and probably so many like me have lived the best of our unworried lives on.