What does it feel like to walk out on Centre Court at Wimbledon?
Two players with plenty of experience in that department are Rod Laver and Jan Kodes, two former Wimbledon champions with new books now on the market that describe the experience of walking out and playing on the most historic tennis court in the world.
Kodes won the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1973, the year of the infamous Wimbledon boycott where 81 ATP pros chose not play in the event to support Nikki Pilic’s suspension from the event for refusing to play Davis Cup for Yugoslavia. The tournament field, however, still featured strong players, including Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Vijay Amritraj and English star Roger Taylor. From the new book JAN KODES: A JOURNEY TO GLORY FROM BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN available here: http://www.amazon.com/Jan-Kodes-Journey-Behind-Curtain/dp/0942257685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277250220&sr=8-1 Kodes writes the following of Centre Court; “It is immensely difficult to succeed on Centre Court the first time. It feels like stepping into a holy shrine. The crowd, the Brits, the overall atmosphere, inspire a curious sense of magnitude. Centre Court is considered, righteously, a sort of tennis temple. It is terribly difficult to cope with it. Every player who steps onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court for the first time loses a bit of confidence and courage. Simply put – he is unable to play his normal game. He is afraid to dare and feels constrained. He can’t concentrate and observes the crowd to see if they like his game or not; he looks for excuses.”
Laver won four Wimbledon titles (1961, 1962, 1968, 1969) – all four in a row, two sandwiched between the amateur and professional eras of tennis. In his newly released and updated memoir THE EDUCATION OF A TENNIS PLAYER ($19.95, New Chapter Press, www.NewChapterMedia.com), Laver describes the feelings one confronts prior to entering the cathedral of tennis, excerpted below.
Wimbledon nerves are worst just before an appearance on Centre. I saw blokes change clothes two or three times, check new socks for holes, pace the dressing room floor, do any number of little things that they thought might put off the walk to Centre. They were just kidding themselves, of course. When Peter Morgan came in and said it was time to go, we were always ready. We knew there was no deviation from punctuality in that place. We weren’t dragged screaming, but sometimes our legs felt like silly putty.
It was always the same when you marched out for the final. E. G. Bulley, the locker attendant, carried your rackets and the referee, Mike Gibson, walked along to make sure you didn’t get lost on the way, which is all of fifteen yards. Above the doorway to the court is that sign: “If you can treat those two impostors . . .” or some bloody thing. [The line, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same,” from Kipling’s poem “If,” appears on that signboard as well as a similar one located back in the day above the marquee entrance to the stadium court at Forest Hills.]
You entered, bowed along with your opponent and then began the warm-up, which in England is called the knock-up. The expression is hilarious to Americans because it means something entirely different in their language.
Contrary to American custom, you are never introduced to the crowd by the umpire, a public address announcer, or anyone else. The English consider it superfluous, feeling that anybody in Centre who doesn’t know Newcombe from Laver should be under surveillance by Scotland Yard.
By the time of the final, the court looked like a faded billiard table, the grass scuffed and worn. But it played like a new billiard table-fast, level, true. After the terrific pounding, the courts weren’t the handsome lawns we began on two weeks before. But they never betrayed you. The bounce could still be depended on.