John McEnroe shares his thoughts with Tim Henman and Claire Balding on the BBC
A new era in the men's game and also in BBC coverage. Claire Balding in place of Sue Barker, new format and new host of Today at Wimbledon, farewell to John Inverdale after 39 years of broadcasting from the tournament. And, for many viewers at home, a new high level of frustration with on-screen characters and lighting.
The wonders of social media mean that no one has to suffer in silence these days, and one can only hope that BBC commentators and experts don't look up their names on these sites.
Here, for example, is Nick Kyrgios tweeting a typical, unvarnished assessment of the male finale: “Whoever is the clown next to [Todd] Woodbridge in this commentary booth, just don't talk. Ruin the match on a grand scale.”
Surely even someone as explosive as Kyrgios could not have been coached by Tim Henman, so this can only mean that his dissatisfaction was with another former British No. 1 in Beeb boxing. Andrew Castle qualified for the men's final; many spectators shook their heads. Opinions on the Internet about Castle's performance varied, but only that different people were annoyed by different aspects of it.
May I turn to the classics to sum up? As Chas and Dave so convincingly wrote in their 1981 masterpiece Rabbit: Andrew, “with your incessant talk…you become a pest.”
Henman is one of the most successful former professional broadcasters in any sport and has turned into a superb pundit: a good-natured yet shrewd and undeniably sweet guy that your mom would have preferred to be best man. However, Woodbridge is also affable and perhaps the recipe needed a little more spice for that exciting finale? A prickly and divisive figure like Novak Djokovic is better covered by another groovy trader on a one-to-one-know-one basis. By the way, Kyrgios could be an interesting acquisition if he succeeded.
A personality as special as that of Djokovic lends itself to analysis by experts who were themselves masters of the dark arts, just as Graeme Souness, for example, is most watchable when he analyzes a sweet bit of the old ultra-violence on the football field.
Of course, the BBC has the original and the best in their books in John McEnroe, but he fulfilled his obligations to the American media during the match. He appeared before the final to remark that, like Djokovic, he “has the ability to turn the crowd against me”, chatting with Pat Cash and throwing a hand grenade or two with Bald.
The mighty Claire, so dependable on Beebe for so long, hadn't built up her reputation in those two weeks. One of the biggest applause of the week was the introduction of Sue Barker to the Center Court crowd, and many viewers certainly missed Balding's predecessor.
Claire is somehow at ease with tennis and tennis players, vacillating between being too subservient with talent or being too talkative. At the Olympics, she's so good that she makes the viewer worry for two minutes about the plucky British tiddlywinkle player who returns Llanelli's bronze medal despite all the hardships he endured with his lumbago and the loss of his lottery funding, but tennis is a true global sport with international stars, and blue Peter and the cheerful tone of hockey sticks doesn't fit. Wimbledon was, unfortunately, a prime example of this kind of something that a lot of people don't like about the Beebe: the chatter, the goofy chatter of British swindlers, the sincere chatter.
Not too willing to wear pink, uh, tinted glasses, the days of presenters like John Inverdale might very well be over. Over the weekend, he played his last Wimbledon on Radio Five; perhaps an interview, a gaffe, retribution, Marion Bartoli sent a coach clock or a basket of cosmetics.
He was good on TV, in Inverdale, but absolutely first class on radio. On Radio Five, sports information and discussion is still allowed to speak for itself without the flannel that has become part of BBC TV reporting. Perhaps not the worst time to go.
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