Old-School Wimbledon
The courts where time stands rather still
WIMBLEDON -- It’s tough to be a nostalgic in Grand Slam tennis. So much of the physical evidence is gone.
The US Open left Forest Hills in 1978 and keeps remodeling its new home at Flushing Meadows. The Australian Open left the grass of Kooyong in 1988 for the hardcourts of Flinders Park, which is now ever-expanding Melbourne Park. The French Open has been at Roland Garros stadium since 1928, but its organizers have reimagined and rebuilt nearly the entire complex in the last decade, demolishing the iconic “Bullring” court and much more.
Even the oldest of the four majors, Wimbledon, where tennis history is a brand, has made fundamental changes. Centre Court has its modernist roof. Its atmospheric former appendage, the old Court No. 1, which felt like a Shakespearian theater, is gone. So is the “Graveyard” Court, the grassy scene of many a thunderclap upset. So is the green water tower and the old Court No. 2 with its Crow’s Nest, a radio platform that was difficult to access on its narrow ladder but well worth the cramped climb with its panoramic view of the most famous grounds in the game.
Though I wasn’t doing radio, I used to sneak up there often back in the day when sneaking around was easier to do at Wimbledon.
That’s me, the scofflaw:
But there is still a place at today’s Wimbledon where a fan, or a sentimental sportswriter, can feel like time has stood rather still.
It’s a cozy neighborhood of eight courts just south of Centre Court that comprises courts 4 through 11. Wimbledon calls it “The Octuple”, and though the numbering and layout have shifted some through the decades, the setting has not, and with all the construction elsewhere, it has become one of my favorite spots in tennis.
This grouping of outside courts dates to 1922, when the All England Club moved here to its new 13-acre ground from its original site just a couple of miles away on Worple Road. According to the Wimbledon Compendium, these courts were built on a base of ash, acquired from coal mines, whereas the more modern courts at Wimbledon are on concrete bases.
The idea behind the 1922 move was more elbow room, but The Octuple is certainly not the place to come for that during the first week of today’s Wimbledon. The eight courts are packed tightly together with narrow lanes separating them and wooden, park-style benches the only seating for the most part.
You’ll find them below Centre Court on this map:
There is no need for a fan to shout to make their voice heard, although spectators do occasionally need to lean back to stay out of range of the swipe of a racket on a wide return of serve.
Some players struggle with the close quarters. “It’s hard to get in and out of there; it can be tough to get through the crowd,” said Jill Craybas, the tour pro turned commentator who once beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon, though not on this neighborhood.
It can be tough for a spectator to move freely, too, particularly when Brits Katie Boulter and Heather Watson are playing on Court 4 and the world No. 1 doubles team of Katarina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend are playing at the same time on adjacent Court 5.
Here’s what that looked like on Thursday:
But players also appreciate what many of us appreciate: the intimacy; the contagious energy from the crowd and adjacent courts; the throwback appeal of the verdant, low-rise view where you can easily imagine club members exchanging strokes on a Sunday afternoon when the tournament is not in session.
Grasscourt tennis, however rarefied in this era, has its undeniable charms and those are easier to appreciate here as you can get close enough to see the spin of the crisply sliced backhands and forehands; close enough to note the muffled footwork and soft bounce of the ball, as understated as the all-white clothing and dearth of advertising.
There has been serious discussion about taking this area and making it into a smaller group of individual courts, each with its own grandstand. That already has been done elsewhere at Wimbledon, but for now and hopefully quite a bit longer, The Octuple remains intact; its connection with the past tangible and direct.
As I navigated the pathways on Thursday, I ran into Hall of Famer Pam Shriver, who won five Wimbledon women’s doubles titles and reached three semifinals in singles. She made her Wimbledon debut on Court 5 in 1978 against Marie “Mimmi” Wikstedt and won.
“I feel like this part of the club is the part that’s the same as when I played here for the first time,” Shriver said “I think I won my second match on Court 4, and so I graduated from this quiet part of the club to Centre Court, where I played and lost to Sue Barker, and it does feel like two very different places.”
As we spoke on one of the benches near Court 7, we looked up to our left at the ivy-covered southern façade of Centre Court with its members’ balcony full of the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.
“You start off playing in the shadows of Centre Court,” Shriver said. “And, when you finish your work out here, you get the gift of going into Centre Court where it feels like the biggest amount of space you can have for one single tennis court. The dimensions are the same with the lines of course, but the court itself with the added space on the sidelines after the doubles alley and even the baseline to the wall below the Royal Box feels like five acres of land compared to this.”
Shriver said adjusting to that extra space is a challenge.
“When you come to net a lot, depth perception is so important,” she said. “It’s kind of like in the Final Four, when they move to the domes. The shooters go from shooting 60 percent to 40 percent because everything is just a little bit different. And though the club has loosened it up and are allowing more practices to take place on Centre Court, it’s still a very rare thing.”
Shriver, working at Wimbledon as an on-call advisor to Yonex players, enjoys the vintage feel of The Octuple but thinks the court boundaries need to get bigger.
“Particularly on the sideline,” she said, leaning over the rope barrier. “If you’re quick, which I wasn’t necessarily, this is in play. Rafa Nadal would never be happy out here. There’s not enough room for him to negotiate. That’s why Rafa liked the big courts.”
But that did not stop Nadal from thriving in these cozier confines. He, Rod Laver, John McEnroe and Roger Federer all made their Wimbledon main-draw debuts in this area. Federer and Nadal both started on Court 6 at the age of 17. Though I missed Federer’s match against Jiri Novak in 1999, I was there for Nadal’s debut against Mario Ancic in 2003.
It was my first glimpse of Nadal in the flesh, and his competitive drive, abundant energy and phenomenal athleticism were already unmistakable as he swashbuckled about the grass and beat Ancic in his first match at a major. It was only afterward, when we interviewed him, that it was clear, with his baby face and self-conscious mannerisms, that he was still a teenager.
It was also on Court 6 that in 1983, American Trey Waltke paid a personal tribute to Wimbledon history by playing in long white flannel trousers and a long-sleeved button-down shirt. It brought him luck, as he defeated former Wimbledon champ Stan Smith, who retired early in the fifth set, but Waltke’s luck ran out in the next round against Ivan Lendl.
That was not the only sartorial statement in this neighborhood.
According to The Compendium, back in 1930 on Court 10, Englishman Brame Hillyard became the first to play at Wimbledon wearing shorts.
Nearly a century later, I saw no groundbreakers as I made my way between Courts 4 and 11. But I did see some of the best players in the world from ground level: sense their power and the speed of their reactions; grasp the depth of the challenge at delightfully close range.
Crowded? Yes.
Worth preserving in a world full of change? Absolutely.
CC
P.S. I just realized, a couple of days after I posted this, that the Wimbledon poster this year IS the Octuple, or least the Quadruple. Long may it reign.
Love this story! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Welcome back to 'down Memory Lane' Mr. C.
"But players also appreciate what many of us appreciate: the intimacy; the contagious energy from the crowd and adjacent courts; the throwback appeal of the verdant, low-rise view"
Intimacy and contagious energy win every single time.
Let us all embrace and take deep into our hearts, and keep, the old pleasures, that are, seemingly, wasted on the young. Keep a tight hold on such precious spaces as once they are gone they really are gone.
Please, please, ask some of the top snappers to capture the sights and sounds of these beautful spaces; the hustle, the hub-bub, the jostle and, of course, the views from these places of the tennis and the passions that are played out.