Monday 18 August 2008

Too much of a good thing?


FreakyFrites - one of my favourite bloggers - asked a really good
question, in a comment she posted on the item below, on how they will
schedule the Olympic tennis in 2012.

To paraphrase, will Wimbledon and Olympic tennis be back to back?

As far as I'm aware nothing has been decided yet, but a couple of
things are as good as set in stone.

It's almost inconceivable that the All England Club will break with
tradition and move Wimbledon from its usual last week of June, first
week of July.

So it looks to me as if the mens final will be Sunday 8th July.

Meanwhile, the opening ceremony for the London games is 27 July. And I
guess that the tennis will start shortly after that.

So rather than having to wait 12 months for another dose of Wimbledon,
we have Groundhog Day 3 weeks later.

Can't quite decide if it's a good thing or if it will all feel a
little weird.

What do you think?

4 comments:

freakyfrites said...

Hi Steve!

Thanks for confirming my suspicions (and sorry to make you the London 2012 Oracle!)

It will be fascinating to witness the players basically getting a "redo" of Wimbledon - and fun to see how Wimbledon handles it all. Will they go international-fusion with the strawberries and cream or even relax the dress code to accommodate national colors that divert from all-white?

Too bad we have to wait four years to find out. . .

Steve said...

Hi freakyfrites

players wearing colours! Is that the sound of tea cups being dropped in shock and horror at SW19?

It sounds like the making of a power struggle between the Olympic organisers and the All England Club.

Personally I love the idea! lets us the Olympics to mix things up a bit and make tennis a bit more accessible.


Steve

Anonymous said...

Hey Freakyfrites and Steve! I was just thinking about tennis out there in 2012, and this came to mind: Isn't weather at that time of year a major concern, and could the grass hold up to that kind of wear and tear over the course of a few weeks? The roof should be done by then, but isn't that just for a couple of courts?

Not to make it sound so casual, but why not build an indoor facility?

Pamala Knight said...

LOL Steve! Tea cups being dropped indeed. That's pretty hysterical, but I'm sure that the AELTC will weather the change. After all, they've seen naked men flashing across Center court and Tatiana Golovin's red knickers. I think they'll be all right.

Seriously though, you bring up a wonderful point about the timing issue and it will be very interesting to see how it affects the schedules of the players before and after the Olympics.