ANDY Murray's remarkable rise to world No4 and his brother Jamie's 2007 victory in the Wimbledon mixed doubles have given British tennis some of its self-respect back.
The Davis Cup tie against Austria in September showed there is not exactly strength in depth yet, but the Scottish siblings have at least kick-started a revival which should mean there is no danger of a return to the bad old days for some time to com
e.
It is easy to forget just how bad those days were; how Britons would be no more than makeweights in any tournament they entered. We don't want to revert to that pitiable state in a hurry, and we don't really need a reminder of how woeful it was.
But never mind, the Blackrock Masters Classic will give us one anyway, by reuniting some of the most well-known players of yesteryear, and getting them to play against each other at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In the singles, along with genuine tennis greats such as Pete Sampras (14 Grand Slam titles) and John McEnroe (a mere seven) and other Wimbledon winners like Stefan Edberg and Pat Cash, we've got Jeremy Bates.
The doubles cast, meanwhile, includes Jamie Murray (who is surely way too young to be classed as a master), three-times Wimbledon semi-finalist Henri Leconte, McEnroe's former playing partner Peter Fleming ... and Chris Wilkinson. According to the ITV4 website, Wilkinson "nearly made it as a footballer after showing promise in the Southampton youth team". He nearly made it as a tennis player too, peaking at 114 in the world rankings.
Given that this is just an end-of-year jolly, a bit of light entertainment rather than sport, the results don't really matter. But it is, all the same, a bit galling to have the likes of Bates and Wilkinson thrown in to make up the numbers or provide local interest.
Greg Rusedski is also in the singles and, being younger than most of his competitors, can acquit himself fairly well, so maybe he should have been left to fly the flag for the UK. Given his considerable contribution to tennis, there can't be more than a handful of spectators who insist on regarding him as not really British.
Still, as I was saying, it's not that serious. You could guess that from the venue – with the Albert Hall's massive organ looming up at one end, there's just not the feeling that this is the right setting for tennis. True, there's the posh folk sitting there sipping champagne just like at Wimbledon, but when the camera pans around the building it only reminds you of the Last Night of the Proms, to the extent that at any minute you expect the audience to break into that stupid knees-bent, on-the-spot dance they do to a sea shanty.
The seniors tour in golf is still fundamentally about some men trying to get round a course in as low a score as possible, but the tennis equivalent appears to be more about the personalities involved. What the leading players do, in essence, is to reprise their own personas.
It's live nostalgia, really. Or at least almost live – because, while we can once more see McEnroe become enraged by a debatable line call, we know the issue is not as important to him as it was a quarter of a century ago, and we suspect he may just be getting enraged for the sake of it.
Like actors in a sketch show who must utter the same catchphrases every week, McEnroe and his colleagues know what they have to do to press the audience's chuckle buttons. It's such a large and obvious part of the appeal of the tournament – but not so obvious that the commentators feel they can let it speak for itself.
Take the neat little piece of role reversal in McEnroe's match with Cedric Pioline. The Frenchman, ostensibly outraged by some minor injustice, threw his racket to the floor, whence it bounced back up into his hands. "Where do you think he learned that from?" one of the commentary team asked rhetorically, spoiling the whole moment in the process.
Later, while McEnroe engaged in the obligatory dispute with the umpire over – you guessed it – a debatable line call, Pioline leaned back and pretended to strum his racket like a languid medieval court entertainer. This was an easy impression to pull off, given that he and the rest of the cast are basically languid modern court entertainers.
The head jester, of course, is Mansour Bahrami, the doubles player. This is a man so bored by convention that he probably can't even cross a road without skipping off to the side, momentarily feigning drunkenness, then producing a frog from his pocket before finally reaching the far pavement.
Andy Murray has sometimes been criticised for trying too many trick shots. Bahrami does nothing but. Like pins and needles, he is entertaining for a little while, but then just becomes annoying.
