JULY 3, 2013

    I always enjoy Wimbledon. the British tennis tournament.  It's fun to watch even on TV, though not as much as when, living in London years ago, I used to go.

     Pretty people in interesting leisure clothes your grandparents might have worn, British summer food--hey you can't knock strawberries and cream, can you?  

     And of course there's the tennis match itself. This year, it's been all upsets. Rafael Nadal, a top seed, out the first day;  Roger Federer, once the world's best but a little older now, left early;  Serena Williams, whom we all thought unbeatable, got beaten.  American sportswriters were lamenting the decline of American men--no Agassis, no Samprases these days.  British sportswriters complain of a much longer drought--this British tournament was last won by a British man, Fred Perry, back in 1938.

     That may be changing.  A Brit named Andy Murray just survived a gruelling quarterfinal and is into the semis.  He's not only a Brit, he's a Scot, and they hardly play the game at all.  My late father, whose folks came from there, would have been very pleased.