Browse content similar to 15/05/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Now on BBC News, it is time for Meet The Author. | :00:00. | :00:11. | |
Wimbledon starts in about a month's time and with it Britain's annual | :00:12. | :00:19. | |
tennis hysteria. Elizabeth Wilson Love Game charts the history of | :00:20. | :00:26. | |
tennis from a small game to big business, now dominated by | :00:27. | :00:30. | |
sponsorship and a handful of superstar athletes. | :00:31. | :00:48. | |
Elizabeth Wilson, you are obviously a great enthusiast for tennis as a | :00:49. | :00:55. | |
game. It is an elegant game but there is more to it than that? It is | :00:56. | :01:02. | |
an elegant and stylised game. It is also a rather operatic or a soap | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
opera game. Matches go one for a long time. They are indeterminate. | :01:10. | :01:12. | |
You do not know when they will end. There are more ups than downs and | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
ebbs and flows than you would get in a game which lasts for 90 minutes or | :01:18. | :01:22. | |
something like that. Because it is a game where individuals play one | :01:23. | :01:25. | |
another, the personalities or the emotions come out what `` come out | :01:26. | :01:35. | |
much more. People get very emotional about football but there is more | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
play of personality and dramatic tension I think than in a lot of | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
other games. You are a cultural historian by trade and this is a | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
cultural history of tennis. One thing which comes up quite strongly | :01:51. | :01:52. | |
is for much thing which comes up quite strongly | :01:53. | :01:54. | |
is for of its time, it has been a rather sexy game, and erotic game. | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
You get the controversy over what women should wear. Very much so. In | :02:01. | :02:07. | |
the 50s you had Gorgeous Gussie's knickers with people lying on the | :02:08. | :02:11. | |
floor to get a sight of them which seems rather ridiculous now. There | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
has been a problem with women in the game because they are seen as erotic | :02:16. | :02:22. | |
and sometimes they are not erotic enough and they become too | :02:23. | :02:24. | |
masculine. There is a kind of ambivalence about women being so | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
much at the centre of the sport when they are not the centre of most | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
sports. It was always seen as a sissy game or an effete game, not | :02:33. | :02:38. | |
really masculine enough. It was somehow confused with flotation and | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
erotic encounters on the court and so on. One of the early stars of the | :02:44. | :02:54. | |
game was the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen, who is the archetype of | :02:55. | :03:02. | |
someone with a domineering parents. It is very much a game of | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
individuals. The individual has to start playing very young, when they | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
are under the tutelage of their parents. Coaches can play an | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
oppressive role as well. I have to say, it does seem to be that some of | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
these parents, mostly fathers, not always but mostly fathers, are | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
trying to live out their ambitions through a child, which of course | :03:28. | :03:32. | |
occurs in other spheres of life. It does seem to be particularly | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
prevalent in tennis. I am not really sure why. I suppose in the open era | :03:37. | :03:43. | |
where amateurism was abolished, the money is so huge that if you are | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
really successful, there is that kind of temptation as well. You are | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
rather critical of the present state of the game which you think has been | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
spoiled partly by money, partly by the media's fascination with | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
personalities and partly by technology, said that in both the | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
women's and men's games, you have this power driven Baseline tennis | :04:10. | :04:15. | |
which is rather dull to watch. There will be people who prefer that kind | :04:16. | :04:22. | |
of tennis and people who preferred the shotmaking so I do not think it | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
has been completely spoiled but I do think there is this what could be | :04:27. | :04:34. | |
called like McDonald's, wherever thing becomes the same as in | :04:35. | :04:39. | |
globalisation. The shots are the same, the services are the same, the | :04:40. | :04:42. | |
kids are being taught a particular way to play. I do not think it is | :04:43. | :04:51. | |
the technology itself. You cannot just refuse technological change and | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
different graphics and different strings are so one `` different | :04:56. | :05:01. | |
rackets, it is as if the technology has taken control. There is not | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
really an attempt to say how can we control the technology so it makes | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
for a better game. There are one or two people who buck the trend, if | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
there is a hero of the latter part of this book, for you I think it | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
would be Roger Federer who managed to remain an all`rounder with an all | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
court game. Guess, I think is a superior player who has bucked the | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
trend in a way. He does play this beautiful game. Perhaps beauty is | :05:31. | :05:37. | |
rather underrated in a sense. There is the search of match a power and | :05:38. | :05:42. | |
warriors although of course he is very competitive and aggressive, but | :05:43. | :05:48. | |
he manages to combine that with this artistic style of game. I think in a | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
way, things in the last year have been changing a bit. A couple of | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
years ago it was said the one`handed backhand will have disappeared in a | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
few years but now there are eight or ten players in the top 20 of men who | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
have a one`handed backhand. There seems to be a bit more volume. I | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
think the pendulum is beginning to swing back a bit. Would it be unfair | :06:13. | :06:20. | |
that what you would like to see is a gentle decline in tennis, the money | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
and commercialism fading away because what we would be left with | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
was a more interesting game, albeit one that is appreciated by a smaller | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
audience but it would be more fun? No, I do not think that, because it | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
is already fading away! It is a niche sport. Like everything in | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
globalisation, the big get bigger and the small get smaller. I think | :06:44. | :06:53. | |
it is already a niche sport. I think everybody, all sports writers say | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
money is spoiling the game, whatever game it is. There is not much you | :06:57. | :07:04. | |
can do about that. I think perhaps those who manage the game, they are | :07:05. | :07:10. | |
not really interested in the game itself, and how these pressures risk | :07:11. | :07:18. | |
kind of creating a sort of reduced game in a way, are more standardised | :07:19. | :07:25. | |
game that is fit for television in a way, fits into this wish to have a | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
mass sport, without actually making it into a mass sport. I would like | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
perhaps more people to be interested in it, in a slightly more informed | :07:36. | :07:43. | |
way. Elizabeth Wilson, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, and | :07:44. | :07:45. | |
tennis will survive somehow! Once again, for a lot of us, it has | :07:46. | :08:00. | |
been a nice day with plenty of sunshine. In one or two spots, | :08:01. | :08:04. | |
temperatures reaching around 20 degrees | :08:05. | :08:06. |