Samuel's Blog

Why do they play tennis in summer?

January 21st, 2009 at 01:53pm

Can anyone explain to me the logic behind playing tennis in summer?

Every year we have the Australian Open in Melbourne in summer when it is absolutely boiling. At this time yesterday it was 40 degrees, and yet for whatever reason a whole bunch of people decided that it would be a good idea to run around hitting a ball back and forth for hours on end.

And if it’s not the heat that they’re whinging about, it’s the rain…and Melbourne is almost the London of the southern hemisphere when it comes to rain. There are two days of rain expected in the coming week for Melbourne which, as good as that may be for allowing the tennis to continue for most of the time, just means that there’ll be more whinging about the heat when it’s not raining. Perhaps the London analogy is actually accurate here as I could draw some parallel between that and a common derogatory phrase about people from England who complain about things.

So explain to me why tennis is played when it’s either going to be hot or wet, when it would surely be much more sensible to just play tennis in winter which is a statistically dryer time of the year. Sure, the crowds might be slightly less excited at the prospect of sitting in the freezing cold during the matches, and you’d probably struggle to entice international spectators to “come and watch tennis in the cold”, but at least the players wouldn’t be too hot, the rain wouldn’t stop play half as much as it does at this time of the year, and the meat pie industry might get a bit of a cash injection from all the patrons wanting hot food.

I suppose that when it comes down to it, playing tennis in summer really is just an excuse for the organisers and players to complain…and let’s face it, tennis is so deathly dull on its own that they have to do something to make it interesting. If it weren’t for the soap-opera antics at the tennis, Seven would be much more likely to bid for the television rights to the lawn bowls.

From my perspective though, I’ll just keep ignoring the tennis as much as possible, and be thankful that there is no live commentary of it on the radio…the television commentators struggle to stay awake, just imagine the amount of dead air that radio would have if somebody actually tried to cover the tennis.

Perhaps if I ever try to run for politics again I could have a policy of banning tennis, and encouraging more golf and lawn bowls…the economy might not be all that great afterwards, but at least we wouldn’t have to deal with tennis ever again.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Samuel's Editorials,Sport

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