The Downfall of an Empire

Before i start- maybe i should not write blogs in a really bad mood. Anyway, its better than writing it drunk. Slightly.

The Empire that fell for me this weekend, is Wimbledon.

I should have photoshopped this a bit. Maybe make the leaves appear withered and brown. Unfortunately, my photoshop skills are- to put it mildly- very limited.

But it should look more like Rivendell. Like late Autumn. You can still see it, still standing, but you just know the glory days are over.

I'm not talking about Rafa going out in round 2. Upsets happen, even to the best. Especially on grass courts, the most difficult surface to play tennis. I'm not even talking about the weather- it rained in Wimbledon before. But there was still glory. There was excitement. There was that aura of the best players meeting on grass.
Even the uniforms. Wimbledon is the only tournament where officials really look like officials.


2012, the year when Wimbledon sank like Atlantis in a stormy night coupled with an earthquake and a tsunami.

It started well enough, but during the first week, the Wimbledon i used to watch so many times got shut down, and they somehow started a new tournament. It vanished overnight, as if it never had been there, and the ruins left stared back at me when i opened Tennis TV the next day: there it was. Wimblahdon.

Wimbledumbdon. Wimbledamp. Maybe even Wimbleswamp? I'm not taking any credit for those names (chuckle). I will add the approbiate link for the blog of the genius who found all those new names for ex- Wimbledon at the bottom. Credit where credit is due.

Roger Federer won Wimblechdon. Really? At first, i thought it must have been @pseudofed. I mean, why would Roger even want to win Blahdon? Should have handed it to Andy Murray on a silver plate. At least, this would have made some sense to me.

Maybe this is not really a blog- its a swan song. Good- bye, Wimbledon. We had some good years. I enjoyed them a lot. I enjoyed them in sunshine and rain. I enjoyed watching the greats on grass. When umpires were judges, when linesmen (and women) could actually see the lines, when players were the gladiators, when good ol' tradition was good ol' tradition- yes, we know its silly. But its tradition.

Nothing is for eternity. Time to move on. Time for a disrooted tennis heart to find a new home.

 New balls, please.

And the prize for Blahdon goes to: click me

The desire....to be an umpire

Rejoice, oh Rivendell!

Forgive me the quick side- trip to the 'Lord Of  The Rings'- what i want to write about, this time, is what i seem to have neglected for a while.

Not the Lord Of The Rings, but The Lord Of The Tennis Balls.

When i was about 14 years old, i was a member of the Hockey & Tennis club in my hometown.

No, thats not me. But you get the picture.

Don't ask for my talent. It was basically nonexistent. But one day, i was asked to umpire a match played by 10 year olds. You have to understand that this was a loooong time ago. In a very small and very exclusive tennis club, i might add (as far as i know, no future champion ever came out of that place either). There was no such thing as a hawk eye. No line judges. When the one in the chair said the ball was out, it was out. We were all well educated children, of course. We did not argue with umpires. You still had the chance though to hit him or her on the nose afterwards (out of sight of any grown- ups).

And even if it was a long time ago, i very well remember the feeling of climbing up the ladder into that chair.

The moment i was up there, i looked around and found that the world, my world, all of a sudden- had changed. The place looked so small. The children holding their tennis rackets looking up- up!- to me with expectation. They even looked a bit frightend. They had never seen me there before, and didn't know what to expect.

Maybe at that moment, i suddenly left the world of children. Something happened to me up there. I had always been a bit of a shy child, restrained even- i had an older brother you know.

But the moment i sat down on that chair, it felt like i had just been crowned. This pathetic little grass court glistening in the sunshine became my kingdom. This was my moment. My rules. My commands.

It had something magical.

I don't remember how long that match lasted. Not very long, probably. But every moment of it, every 'OUT!' shouted by me with an authority i hadn't known it even existed inside of me, every 'time!'- maybe every single score i called has been burned into my mind. When i close my eyes, i still see myself sitting on that magical chair. I was a different person that day, and i was never the same when it ended. I had changed forever. I had entered the world that was outside of my childhood cocoon, i had opened a door and closed it behind me.

Dramatic, is it not? You might be relieved to hear that nobody hit me on the nose afterwards- or then, maybe not. Tennis umpires don't have an easy life, you know.

Nowadays, i watch a lot of tennis. Maybe because of my own childhood experience, i watch the umpires more than most people do. I know what they feel. Of course, when you do that for many years, and even as a professional, umpiring the big tournaments- some of what I felt, at the age of 14, might fade a bit, with time.

But it never fades completely. I know that every tennis umpire out there, the moment he sits down in his (or her) chair, feels at least a part of what i felt the first time. The stadium. The people. The atmosphere, the moment to say 'time'. I didn't have a microphone, i had to shout that. And i felt that atmosphere- and the tension- even with only some parents watching. How must it be with thousands watching? And knowing that millions are sitting in front of their TV screens watching?

I leave that to your imagination. But the next time you want to punch a tennis umpire on the nose, remember that for him, this is a magical place. He (or she) is not the same person you meet in the next pub. He is the ruler of his kingdom. The Lord of his castle. His word is law, and it has to be. Now we have hawk eyes and line judges and everything, and it makes the work of an umpire easier, but still- when he makes a mistake, it is his mistake. He can't point his finger to someone else. And the next day it will be on youtube.


So it can also be a very lonely place. But still- its only a metallic structure, with a seat placed on top of it, but for an umpire, from the moment he climbs up to the moment he climbs down, it is a different world. A la- la- land. A fantasy land. Addictive and frightening at the same time.

Maybe you should try it yourself one day.