READING A LOT this week about Britain's "day of shame" at Wimbledon. Learning about the "hollow-eyed losers" that exited early from the tournament. Blundering Boggo (that's Alex Bogdanovic), Woeful Ward (that's Alex Ward), Desperate Dan (Evans, of course), they all got smashed. Eleven Brits entered the singles draw and nine of them were gone after round one. Embarrassing.
Actually, no, it was worse than that. It was a disgrace. Hang on, not strong enough. A scandal! Now we're getting there. On Sky Sports News the other morning we had a football writer quoting another football writer on how outrageous the British fail
ure truly was. Day-trippers to the world of tennis, the boys were outraged at the state of the grand old game. "I'm really angry about this," said the bloke on his soapbox. "Our players lack guts in adversity. It's unacceptable, quite frankly."
Unacceptable? Let's see. Bogdanovic, ranked 189 in the world and with a Wimbledon record of zero wins from seven singles matches, is beaten by Tomas Berdych, seeded 20th and with 11 Wimbledon wins in 16 singles matches. Unacceptable? I'd say entirely predictable.
What about Wardy, ranked 224, beaten by Fernando Verdasco, the No.7 seed? In the kind of parlance that our indignant television analyst would understand, that's a bit like Arsenal beating Northwich Victoria. A shock, it was not.
Eight out of the nine first-round losses were of that ilk. Laura Robson, aged 15 and playing her first singles match at Wimbledon, was knocked out by Daniela Hantuchova, a semi-finalist in the Australian Open last year. Mel South was beaten by a player ranked 43 places above her. Josh Goodall was turfed out by a guy 51 places above him. Georgie Stoop, ranked 185 in the world, was edged out by Vera Zvonareva, the No.7 seed. Dan Evans, 305th in the rankings, was hammered by Nikolay Davydenko, seeded 12th, Katie O'Brien, ranked 108th, was done in three sets by a girl 73 places higher up the rankings.
And we call this unacceptable?
If the same principles were to apply to football then every time the minnows got pulverised by the giants in the FA Cup we'd hold them up to public ridicule, as happened here. Ebbsfleet get knocked out by Manchester City? Shame on you, Ebbsfleet!
How ludicrous is that?
All the losing Brits have been pilloried but Bogdanovic has got it in the neck more than anybody. For 51 weeks of the year nobody in Britain gives a toss about guys like Boggo and girls like South. We don't care where they have been and how they have done.
So far in 2009 Bogdanovic has played in tournaments in New Caledonia, Melbourne, Wroclaw, Belgrade, Wolfsburg, Bergamo, Baton Rouge, Tallahassee, Rhodes and Izmir and he has hardly been mapped in any of them. He hasn't beaten anybody ranked higher than 77th in the world and he has lost to guys ranked in the 200s, 300s and in a couple of cases, the 400s.
This is Mr Below Average we're talking about. But because he's a Brit and because it's Wimbledon and because tennis is so, so important to us all of a sudden we expect him to deliver.
He's up against a man who has in the last year beaten Andy Roddick (6th in the world), Fernando Verdasco (8th), Fernando Gonzalez (10th) and Stanislas Wawrinka (12th). Boggo's best wins have been against Ivo Minar (77th then, 78th now), Bobby Reynolds (94th), Mikhail Kukushkin (175th) and Rik de Voest (206th).
Bogdanovic got battered as anybody with half a brain expected him to yet he gets rounded on by the tennis tourists in the media who wouldn't know a backhand from a forehand but can recognise a "disgrace" and an "outrage" from way up in the Gods at Wimbledon from where they pass judgment.
Listen, Britain has no divine right to win matches at Wimbledon and neither is there an entitlement to attack Brits whose greatest crime in all of this is that they are not talented enough – or as yet experienced enough – to win games of this intensity.
Anne Keothavong was the lone first-round loser who was beaten by a player ranked lower than her. She had an off-day. It happens. She went in the press room later and was asked if she thought she'd let the country down. Keothavong was in the midst of explaining how bloody hard she worked to get to this point and how much she wanted to win when she broke down in tears.
A blind man could see that these players are doing their best. If you attack Boggo for losing to Berdych, Ward for losing to Verdasco and Evans for losing to Davydenko then all you are doing is criticising people for failing to pull off what would have amounted to a sporting miracle.
Ah, say the day-trippers. What about the Lawn Tennis Association's money? A budget of millions of pounds. Why, with all the cash thrown at these players in grants and coaching, can they not perform? In fairness, they're asking the same question in America and other former power-houses of tennis. There are only two Americans ranked in the top 20 in the men's game and only two in the top 50 of the women's game. If it wasn't for the Williams sisters they'd be facing wipeout in the USA.
If cash solved all problems then the heavily monied English rugby team would hardly ever be beaten and the English football team would have a trophy cabinet in need of some heavy reinforcement for all the World Cups and European championships they'd have snapped up by now. Instead, the rugby boys haven't won a thing in five years and the footballers have gone potless for 40 years.
The LTA pump money into the game and they say their investment will reap a reward one day. They reckon good kids are coming down the track if only we'd be patient and wait for them.
You'd almost fear for these youngsters. Honestly, you would. There is so much lazy condemnation of British tennis players at Wimbledon that they'll need to be extremely strong at an extremely young age if they are to survive. Robson, a 15-year-old for the love of God, was bracketed among the "Shame at SW19" headlines.
Where's the shame? I fail to see it. Given the tub-thumping that went on last week you'd think that Britain had a proud history at Wimbledon, you'd swear that Boggo and the rest were betraying some kind of proud heritage. They weren't. All they did was fall in a heap where so many others before them fell. Since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977 no other British woman bar Jo Durie in 1984 has gone as far as the quarter-finals. In the men's singles it if wasn't for Tim Henman and now, mercifully, Andy Murray, you'd have to go back through the generations to dear old Fred and Bunny to find the talent.
The righteous anger of last week was feeble and cheap. If we are to make the same demands on other sportsmen and women in Britain then heaven help Histon if they draw Chelsea in the Cup. Anything less than victory and they'll get the Boggo treatment.
The full article contains 1235 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
