15/05/2014 Meet the Author


15/05/2014

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Now on BBC News, it is time for Meet The Author.

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Wimbledon starts in about a month's time and with it Britain's annual

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tennis hysteria. Elizabeth Wilson Love Game charts the history of

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tennis from a small game to big business, now dominated by

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sponsorship and a handful of superstar athletes.

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Elizabeth Wilson, you are obviously a great enthusiast for tennis as a

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game. It is an elegant game but there is more to it than that? It is

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an elegant and stylised game. It is also a rather operatic or a soap

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opera game. Matches go one for a long time. They are indeterminate.

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You do not know when they will end. There are more ups than downs and

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ebbs and flows than you would get in a game which lasts for 90 minutes or

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something like that. Because it is a game where individuals play one

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another, the personalities or the emotions come out what `` come out

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much more. People get very emotional about football but there is more

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play of personality and dramatic tension I think than in a lot of

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other games. You are a cultural historian by trade and this is a

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cultural history of tennis. One thing which comes up quite strongly

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is for much thing which comes up quite strongly

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is for of its time, it has been a rather sexy game, and erotic game.

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You get the controversy over what women should wear. Very much so. In

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the 50s you had Gorgeous Gussie's knickers with people lying on the

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floor to get a sight of them which seems rather ridiculous now. There

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has been a problem with women in the game because they are seen as erotic

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and sometimes they are not erotic enough and they become too

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masculine. There is a kind of ambivalence about women being so

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much at the centre of the sport when they are not the centre of most

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sports. It was always seen as a sissy game or an effete game, not

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really masculine enough. It was somehow confused with flotation and

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erotic encounters on the court and so on. One of the early stars of the

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game was the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen, who is the archetype of

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someone with a domineering parents. It is very much a game of

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individuals. The individual has to start playing very young, when they

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are under the tutelage of their parents. Coaches can play an

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oppressive role as well. I have to say, it does seem to be that some of

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these parents, mostly fathers, not always but mostly fathers, are

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trying to live out their ambitions through a child, which of course

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occurs in other spheres of life. It does seem to be particularly

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prevalent in tennis. I am not really sure why. I suppose in the open era

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where amateurism was abolished, the money is so huge that if you are

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really successful, there is that kind of temptation as well. You are

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rather critical of the present state of the game which you think has been

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spoiled partly by money, partly by the media's fascination with

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personalities and partly by technology, said that in both the

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women's and men's games, you have this power driven Baseline tennis

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which is rather dull to watch. There will be people who prefer that kind

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of tennis and people who preferred the shotmaking so I do not think it

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has been completely spoiled but I do think there is this what could be

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called like McDonald's, wherever thing becomes the same as in

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globalisation. The shots are the same, the services are the same, the

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kids are being taught a particular way to play. I do not think it is

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the technology itself. You cannot just refuse technological change and

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different graphics and different strings are so one `` different

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rackets, it is as if the technology has taken control. There is not

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really an attempt to say how can we control the technology so it makes

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for a better game. There are one or two people who buck the trend, if

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there is a hero of the latter part of this book, for you I think it

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would be Roger Federer who managed to remain an all`rounder with an all

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court game. Guess, I think is a superior player who has bucked the

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trend in a way. He does play this beautiful game. Perhaps beauty is

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rather underrated in a sense. There is the search of match a power and

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warriors although of course he is very competitive and aggressive, but

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he manages to combine that with this artistic style of game. I think in a

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way, things in the last year have been changing a bit. A couple of

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years ago it was said the one`handed backhand will have disappeared in a

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few years but now there are eight or ten players in the top 20 of men who

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have a one`handed backhand. There seems to be a bit more volume. I

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think the pendulum is beginning to swing back a bit. Would it be unfair

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that what you would like to see is a gentle decline in tennis, the money

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and commercialism fading away because what we would be left with

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was a more interesting game, albeit one that is appreciated by a smaller

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audience but it would be more fun? No, I do not think that, because it

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is already fading away! It is a niche sport. Like everything in

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globalisation, the big get bigger and the small get smaller. I think

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it is already a niche sport. I think everybody, all sports writers say

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money is spoiling the game, whatever game it is. There is not much you

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can do about that. I think perhaps those who manage the game, they are

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not really interested in the game itself, and how these pressures risk

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kind of creating a sort of reduced game in a way, are more standardised

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game that is fit for television in a way, fits into this wish to have a

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mass sport, without actually making it into a mass sport. I would like

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perhaps more people to be interested in it, in a slightly more informed

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way. Elizabeth Wilson, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, and

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tennis will survive somehow! Once again, for a lot of us, it has

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been a nice day with plenty of sunshine. In one or two spots,

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temperatures reaching around 20 degrees

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