Wimbledon: The Best of the Championship

No matter who you are or what you do, your life will have been changed in some way by coronavirus.

Those of us lucky enough not to catch it or suffer some form of personal tragedy will, at the very least, have had their daily routines disrupted in some fashion. Even big corporations are feeling the impact, including major broadcasters.

The BBC in particular has been left with huge gaps to fill in its schedules – it was expecting to be bringing the public the Olympics, the Euro 2020 football championships and the annual tennis extravaganza that is Wimbledon this summer, but all have fallen by the wayside.

As a result, some shows we didn’t expect to appear until later in the year have been bumped up the timetable, while repeats have been dusted down and given a reshowing.

Sports fans enjoyed reruns of classic football matches ahead of the Premier League’s return, and now, on the day that this year’s Wimbledon should have started (this is the first time it’s been cancelled since the Second World War), Sue Barker is hosting a new series looking back at memorable moments from the beloved tournament’s past – and as it’s been running for 143 years, there are plenty to choose from.

One man who’s joining Barker and has been involved in a few classic matches over the years is former British No1 Tim Henman.

“Even though I don’t play anymore it’s still my favourite time of the year and I love getting involved with the commentary,” he explains. “It’s the same every time I walk in through the gates at Wimbledon – I still get that special feeling of being at the biggest and best place in tennis and that will never change.”

Despite once carrying the hopes of the nation on his shoulders, Henman claims, incredibly, he didn’t feel the weight of expectation: “I never had a problem with it because I never really felt like there was any pressure. My attitude was that it had been my dream to play at Wimbledon on Centre Court. I played a lot of my best tennis and got a lot of my best results out there.

“At the end of the day it’s slightly selfish but I was going on the court to play for myself, I wasn’t playing for anybody else and I think that’s the right approach to have. There’s a psychology to it and you want to make sure you’re concentrating on the right things.”

Joining Henman and Barker in the studio is Boris Becker, while Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe add their comments via video link.

This isn’t, however, the only tennis-themed show on the box. Others include Clare Balding’s afternoon series Wimbledon Rewind, which relives incredible matches, and One Day, a look back at July 14, 2019, when the men’s final took place at the same time that England were winning the men’s cricket world cup. All-in-all we can expect an incredible 50 hours of tennis action during the next fortnight, so hopefully we won’t miss those strawberries and cream too much.

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