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