In a sports-obsessed culture, recurring events take on a weird synechdoche (or is it metonymy? this isn't worth looking up)--they are a calendar unto themselves . If the World Series is on, it's getting a little cold for baseball. March is, well. Derby day marks the start of spring as much as Easter or March 21 do. And I'm bound to watch some of Wimbledon on a sunglared TV set at the shore around the 4th of July.
I was originally putting together a post on the McEnroe/Borg years of Wimbledon, but hell if The Selvedge Yard didn't do a way awesomer job than I could last year. So I'll console myself with some archival photos inhabited by the odd mix of tradition and innovation, exertion and reserve of Wimbledon.
First--a video from British Pathe: Wimbledon 1960-1961 in color. Little too much on how Slazeneger makes a tennis ball, but the beginning and end make up for it. Enjoy the casual sexism from the narrator.
And some stills...
American Big Bill Tilden IN ACTION
American Don Budge ALSO IN ACTION
Kiwi A.F. Wilding post-action
I'm lazy and I forgot who this was, but doesn't she look nice? Straight off the pages of Mister Mort.
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