A Moveable Feast: The Summer Tennis and Soccer Shared a Table 

by Kelley Busby

There’s a version of Hemingway’s old idea at work this July: a great sporting event, once you’ve lived inside it, stays with you forever. This month, fans are carrying two feasts at once. In SW19, it’s strawberries and cream, served on the hallowed grounds of the All England Club. Four thousand miles away, it’s burgers and nachos, washed down with Michelob in roaring stadiums from Dallas to Mexico City to Seattle. One event runs on more than a century of hushed tradition, the other on its 23rd edition of unbridled highs and lows. This isn’t the first year they’ve shared a table, but instead of a historically more modest one that fits neatly inside a middle class living room, this one is outright palatial, befit for the spectacle that’s captured the world’s attention.

Wimbledon and the World Cup have shared a calendar several times before, but never at the scale of 2026, with the first 48-team tournament and the first hosted across three nations, along with a USMNT run that, while not the program’s best-ever finish, marked its deepest World Cup showing since 2002. 

American tennis players have had their own stake in it. Taylor Fritz tracked the USMNT from the tournament grounds, including Folarin Balogun’s overturned suspension, which he found more funny than controversial: “I posted on my story the meme, it was pretty funny, of the ref giving him a red card, and he was holding up a UNO reverse card back to the ref.” Coco Gauff was also following the action, posting a photo of the USA’s win over Australia captioned “United We Ball.”

Asked in June to send a message to the USMNT, Coco offered encouragement, then, half jokingly, admitted she didn’t think the team could go all the way. She turned out to be right: the Americans were eliminated in the Round of 16. Her own tournament followed a similar arc: the best grass court run of her career, a first Wimbledon semifinal, before falling to Karolina Muchova in a nail-biting super tie-break.

Big screens inside and out of The All England Club showed only tennis and officials confirmed no World Cup matches would be shown on the grounds- not on Henman Hill, not in the players’ area- even as England advanced. Chief executive Sally Bolton was candid: “Clearly if people have got their phones, then we’re not going to prevent people from watching the football.” 

Some fans worked around the limitations and in the legendary queue outside watched England’s win over Panama on a projector. Colm O’Donnell, 39, described the scene just outside the gates: “There was a lad who brought an overhead projector and put up a sheet on the fence and around 30 of us watched the football.” Inside on Centre Court during the third set of Barbora Krejcikova’s win over Mirra Andreeva, loud cheers broke out three times from fans simultaneously watching England’s match on their phones, twice for Harry Kane’s goals against DR Congo and once for the final whistle. Andreeva sensed something was off, shaking her head mid-point at the first outburst, but only learned the cause afterward: “Was there a football match? I didn’t know that.” Krejcikova hadn’t registered anything unusual, simply assuming the noise was for her: “I thought it was for us.” Novak Djokovic felt it: “You can sense there’s a buzz going on. People are simultaneously looking at your match and also following their national team. It’s football fever right now.”

And the crossover runs both ways. Alessia Russo, Arsenal’s prolific star striker and England’s reigning Footballer of the Year, was spotted in the Wimbledon stands brushing off fatigue from tracking the England men’s run. Days earlier, she’d told ESPN she believes England “deserves” the trophy, calling Thomas Tuchel’s squad “stacked” enough to go the distance.

Members of the Royal family have been feasting too. Princess Kate, Royal Patron of the All England Club, supported Arthur Fery on July 2 and will present both the men’s and women’s singles trophies this weekend, as she did last year for Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek. Prince William, Patron of the Football Association, has been cheering England on from home so far, but made clear on the New Heights podcast that he’d cross the Atlantic if the Three Lions go all the way. Asked whether he’d “cross the pond” for the final, he told hosts Jason and Travis Kelce, “Definitely. If we’re in the final.” One royal on Centre Court, the other on standby for a flight.

Two of the world’s most beloved international sports shared a lavish table this summer, and our hearts and bellies are full. For two weeks, millions of us have tracked a fuzzy yellow ball back and forth over a net on meticulously mowed ryegrass, then flipped to watch a checkered one being driven up and down FIFA-approved grass an ocean away. Back and forth between two rhythms, two crowds, two kinds of roar, strawberries and cream in one hand, charred burgers and controlled chaos in the other; it’s been a fortnight to savor and, like Paris for Hemingway, one to carry with us always.