The Championships, Wimbledon

Last Friday I had the privilege of spending an evening strolling along the grass courts at Wimbledon, the most revered of Grand Slam tennis tournaments (at least according to the British press). For a few years now I've been catching matches at Flushing Meadows during the U.S. Open, so I was looking forward to experiencing big-time tennis, England style. Unfortunately, I left my seersucker pants at home, so my ability to WASP it up had inherent limits. Never one to give in, I popped my collar, put on some khakis, and proceeded to the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.

Within moments of arriving I realized that Wimbledon is, for better or worse, a tournament of contradictions. Although the event shamelessly caters to the bourgeois set (think champagne, strawberries and cream, etc.), it's also one of the few top tier sporting events to spurn Corporate America England (?) and offer a significant number of tickets to the general public each day for that day's matches. As a result, the duchess of Kent could conceivably rub Centre Court elbows with your smelly neighbor Bob, which in my opinion is pretty cool. That said, we found ourselves waiting in line queueing for about 2 hours (next to your smelly neighbor Bob) to obtain same-day grounds passes. Another, more publicized, contradiction for this "peoples tournament" involves the checks that will be written by the All England Club this year. In what can only be considered a statement play by the AEC, tomorrrow's men's champion will walk away with 655,000 GPB, while today's women's champ will walk away with 625,000 - a variance of about 5%. Now CityHangover doesn't want to get all feminist on you, and both winners make a hell of a lot more than any of us (unless one of you is sandbagging when you make the rest of us buy your drinks), but this just doesn't make sense. Supporters of the pay gap usually cite that the men play best of 5 sets, while the women play best of 3. However, based on my admittedly suspect math skills, this logic would support something closer to a 33%-40% pay variance. The measly 5% gap is simply unfounded. And for a tournament that walks away with an annual profit in excess of 25 million pounds, well, it's a bit embarrassing. Venus Williams wrote an interesting piece on the pay gap at the start of this year's tournament.

Anyway, back to business. My visit to Wimbledon didn't result in any massive checks being tossed my way, but did allow me to relax amongst a pristine setting and watch some good ol' grasscourt tennis. We were lucky to stumble upon Williams and American Bob Bryan playing mixed doubles, and given that they were playing on one of the smaller courts, witnessed the impressive size and speed of Venus in person. She's ridiculous. We also had our first glimpse of this year's linesman uniforms, designed by Ralph Lauren and worthy of a Straight Bangin' summer fashion discourse. Now that's a WASP look. After catching a few other matches, we made our way to Henman Hill (I'm resisting this "Murray's Mount" isht). As the sun set, a Pimms in my hand, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. Wow. That was cheesy.

The only disappointment on the evening came from yet another Grand Slam visit sans Andre Agassi. Kimbo has pulled the rest of us into an endless pursuit to see him play before he retires, but luck (and the draw) were once again not on our side. I'm cautiously optimistic that our patience will be rewarded at this year's U.S. Open.