The Grass is Still Lovely Even in Its Ancient State

I was looking for a description of Wimbledon when I read these two from Cathy Freeman, the Australian Olympic track champion who watched tennis one day last week from the Center Court royal box:

“My first impression of Wimbledon was being overawed,” she said. “. . . It’s kind of a cross between a museum and a time machine.”

A museum? Definitely. A time machine? That’s a little more imaginative, but it works too. I could see H.G. Wells coming to the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club today and thinking that things haven’t changed all that much since the turn of the 20th century.

Wimbledon is more connected to its past than any other sporting event. Even the name of the sport, lawn tennis, evokes images of men in straw hats and blazers and school ties patting the ball back and forth across the net with women in long dresses and stockings on Sunday afternoons in the back yard while the vicar, looking on, sips tea--like a scene from a Merchant and Ivory movie.

Wimbledon, like much of England, is quaint.

But is it also antiquated?

In certain parts of the world, it is. Many South American and southern European players, who were raised on clay courts, don’t see any splendor in the grass. They don’t care whether they ever win Wimbledon. Some don’t even care to play here.

That includes the world’s No. 1 male player, Brazil’s Gustavo Kuerten, who decided he needed a long rest after winning his third French Open on clay in June. A few other clay-court specialists decided they needed rest too.

They are not missed this year. But if their boycott expands in the future, it could pose the greatest threat to Wimbledon’s prestige since most of the best men refused to play in 1973 over an issue that seemed important at the time but is not worth recalling now.

But it is not only foreigners who are attacking Wimbledon. David Lloyd, the former English Davis Cup captain, repeated last week that there is nothing wrong with the All England Club that a herd of hungry cows couldn’t cure.

Join the present, he suggested, by replacing the grass with concrete-like surfaces such as those used in the U.S. and Australian Opens.

Pave paradise and put up hard courts?

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Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

The All England Club, like England, is moving into the future with a foot firmly planted in the past. I’m not criticizing. Sometimes, I’m envious. We in the United States have a short history and an even shorter attention span.

But Wimbledon officials do see the threat. They’d have to be blind not to considering headlines such as this one last week in the respected International Herald Tribune: “Wimbledon: The World’s Pretty Green Dinosaur.”

According to the article, a French tennis magazine’s poll of players in 1999 found that they still believe Wimbledon is the most prestigious Grand Slam tournament, followed by, in order, the French, U.S. and Australian Opens. But the players ranked Wimbledon last in facilities, scheduling, crowd atmosphere and player treatment.

Also, Wimbledon officials have been unable to negotiate terms with over-the-air television networks in some European countries. The result is that the tournament is available in those places only on cable, which not everyone can afford. That is hardly a way to generate either new fans or young players.

The real issue, however, is the grass.

Who in the world plays on it anymore?

Of 66 tournaments on the men’s tour this year, six are on grass. Of 59 tournaments on the women’s tour, four are on grass.

The U.S. sporting event most closely resembling Wimbledon in attitude is the Masters. Officials at Augusta National are reverent about their traditions, which they will not change no matter who might not play because of them.

Of course, the Masters is not faced with having to remain relevant in a sport in which the majority of tournaments are played on concrete. (Imagine the distance these pros today would get on their drives.)

Wimbledon officials are, to their credit, making concessions.

They, like officials of the other Grand Slam tournaments, have expanded their seedings to 32, which gives the higher-ranked clay-court specialists more of a chance here. They probably bent too far to satisfy Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero, seeding him eighth, but at least he was able to win a couple of matches against lowly-ranked opponents before he was drubbed out of the tournament in the third round by Britain’s Greg Rusedski.

Officials also are considering moving the start of the tournament back a week, giving players time to enter an additional grass-court tournament so that they can better assimilate before Wimbledon. That could happen as soon as 2003.

Ferrero said he’s not sure that will make much difference.

“For example, [Jan-Michael] Gambill prepared one month. . . . because he lost too quickly in Roland Garros, and he lost here in the first round,” Ferrero said. “I think maybe it is the luck. You can play good if you don’t have too much preparation and, if you have too much preparation, you can play bad. It is the life and the luck.”

True. But the point is that at least Wimbledon officials are attempting to restore their tournament as the best for all of the players--or as many as possible--

instead of merely the eight to 10 men and women whose games are suited to grass.

I wish them luck. They should do everything possible, as long as they don’t touch one blade of grass. Wimbledon wouldn’t be Wimbledon without it.

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Wimbledon Today

FEATURED MATCHES

Men--Pete Sampras (1) vs. Roger Federer (15), Switzerland; Andre Agassi (2) vs. Nicolas Kiefer (19), Germany; Patrick Rafter (3), Australia, vs. Mikhail Youzhny, Russia; Marat Safin (4), Russia, vs. Arnaud Clement (13), France

Women--Venus Williams (2) vs. Nadia Petrova, Russia; Lindsay Davenport (3) vs. Jelena Dokic (14), Yugoslavia; Jennifer Capriati (4) vs. Sandrine Testud (15), France; Serena Williams (5) vs. Magdalena Maleeva (12), Bulgaria

TV: Channel 4, 10 a.m.; TNT, 1 p.m.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at randy.harvey@latimes.com