Game… set… scratched: I just can’t cop tennis

It’s January and I’m bored.

Bored of the conjecture surrounding the likely or 'deserved' captain of the national cricket team. Bored by the Socceroos all-conquering Asian Cup campaign. Bored about talk of further expanding either of the country’s major football codes. Bored of still hearing every minute detail regarding Tiger Woods’ ‘comeback’.

But most of all I’m bored of the tennis and I reckon if you tell me you’re not, you’re either pension age or, to some extent, deluded.

Not even the tyranny of distance that separates my island home from the mainland’s bright lights, big cities and bigger egos can spare me from the glaring spectre of tournament tennis these days.

Thanks to the Moorilla Hobart International, I’ve been subjected to ‘world class’ tennis for even longer this summer than normal.

That said, I did almost (and I say ‘almost’ for little more than poetic purposes) attend this year – on a rain day. It just struck me that watching a team of teens earn their summer scratch on the end of a mop and squeegee promised more entertainment value than two faceless girls grunting it out on centre court.

And if they managed not to get on court for the day, there was every chance I’d get my money back. Win-win.

In all fairness, if I’d thought hard enough about what I was letting myself in for this month I’d have extended my stay in the frigid British winter where I spent the Christmas period with friends.

But that’s not to say a foot-deep snow drift on my back doorstep and the most bitter of ice-laden winds whipping straight off the Urals could further cool my interest in tennis.

Sure, I’m terrible at tennis, but that’s little more than the starting point for my misgivings regarding those racket-flinging men and women in white (and all shades of pastel to fluro and back again).

I just find as a spectator it bores me. On television it can look very one dimensional. The players are superstars in their own right, but that John McEnroe's decades-old histrionics are still singled out as the personification of personality and flamboyance in a tennis player is telling. 

Marcos Baghdatis is kind of wacky and Marit Safin's famous harem deserves full respect. But shake the top of the tree these days and all that will rain down is the odd po faced millionaire and tailored white blazer.

And, yes, the girls are often long-limbed and lithe objects of widespread admiration. They are also often guilty of regularly generating the kind of racket you'd expect to hear coming from behind a locked door in a co-ed college corridor. Hardly charming, but I'm sure it helps them nail their backhand.

Live, perhaps, there’s a case for tennis as a spectator sport, but as my mate ‘RJ’ suggested to me recently, he’s only really interested if he manages to brown-nose the boss sufficiently to score ‘keys’ to the corporate box. As for splashing his hard-earned on general admission… less chance than Israel Folau becoming a 200-game stalwart at the GWS Giants.

On television, I just don’t get it.

Bruce, Sandy and the ever-changing cast of former pros in headsets seem to be enjoying their time in the court-side bunker, but with the exception of another Channel 7 stinker in Deal Or No Deal, nothing has me reaching for the remote faster. Give me an afternoon double-header of Rockford Files and Baywatch, any day.

With courts painted a distinctive shade of blue these days, perhaps there’s some grand plan to arouse and maintain interest, as is the case with Pfizer’s famous ‘blue pill’? But for me a shot of this stuff hits harder than a dose of Diazepam with a Drambuie chaser.

One element missing for me is the lack of conversation generated in social situations on the back of the tennis.

Walk into any pub in footy season and you can take your pick of debates and disputes to involve yourself in. Cricket also gives you a massive tick against this criteria – particularly in the instance of this disastrous summer where you can hardly turn around without being assailed by another opinion. Right now folks are talking NFL, NBL and soccer, too. Just not tennis…

But you can imagine if they were:

 “Did you hear Hewitt got knocked out in the first round of the Open?”
“Really? Shock me…”

 “Did you see Djokovic beat Federer the other night?”
“Nope, I went to bed…”

 “Gee that Zvonareva’s a looker. Kind of reminds of me of a young Mary Pierce. Hot.”
“Mary Pierce? Mary Pierce? Have you lost your mind, man? Get yourself on Google Images and think hard about what you’ve just said.”

 I know, I know. It’s my choice to watch the tennis and if I don’t want to, it’s not like I’ve got Jim Courier holding a snub-nose revolver to my head.

In fact, thankfully, today’s telecast from Melbourne Park didn’t commence until 3pm. But that it could continue in to the wee hours of tomorrow makes my skin crawl.

Tennis balls are for backyard cricket, throwing for your dog or offering your shins some protection against chrome tow-balls. I remain convinced that tennis is merely an unfortunate by-product of the invention of these diverse and fluffy air conveyances.

So, sports gods, please bring me back the football codes. Bring me continued success for Tasmania in all forms of cricket. Help the Australian side improve to the point I don’t feel embarrassed for them anymore. Throw me a bone and make the Superbowl high-scoring and tight. Give me the Champions League and a close-run EPL.

But if you can’t bring me any or all of that, at least please take back the tennis. I really don’t know how much more I can take.