Wimbledon 2022: The perfection of the centenary Cathedral | Sports

In 2022, Wimbledon Center Court will have celebrated its 100th anniversary and, for this reason, the organizers of the English Grand Slam decided to pay homage to such an emblematic stage by gathering a large group of former champions on its grass. They included some of the best in the history of the sport: Rod Laver, Björn Borg, Billie Jean King, Margaret Court, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Novak Djokovic, Rafael and, of course, Roger Federer.

It has been 100 years in which different generations of fans have had the opportunity to witness some of the most transcendental encounters in tennis and in which a privileged few have been lucky enough to play a match. One of the aspirations of new tennis players is to be able to play there one day, a fact that will later be recalled and told with emotion to their relatives. Second level players only have the chance to step on it if they happen to play against one of the top seeds.

I perfectly remember the first time I entered the legendary stadium that I had seen so many times on television. It was 2003, Rafael was playing his first Wimbledon and, I don’t remember very well who, he gave me a ticket to see a match between Federer and Mardy Fish. What I do remember was the emotion that came from sitting on the steps of the Cathedral and being able to breathe that elegant, traditional and historic air. I also keep in mind, of course, the first time that my nephew had the opportunity to play in it and that I told a member of our team how impressed I was to see him play where I had admired Borg so many years ago. It was in the second round in 2006, against Robert Kendrick.

This court has managed to keep the initial tennis traditions unchanged in a perfect balance between the different reforms to which it has been subjected to update it and maintaining its personality. It has never lost an iota of perfection and tradition. The care of any detail exquisitely covers the most insignificant detail, to the point that during a Rafael match, a supervisor came in to kindly ask me to remove an object that had come to interfere with the pristine panorama: the sunglasses that I had carelessly deposited on the wall of our box.

This perfect symbiosis between modernity and tradition makes Wimbledon that unique tournament that is the pride of the select members of this English club. In this centenary anniversary, however, there have been two changes that have slightly modified that undaunted history.

First, it has been removed Middle Sunday or intermediate Sunday in which no game was played. Only on four occasions were matches held at the halfway point of the tournament and that was, as you can imagine, because the rain in London had caused so many delays that it was impossible to reach the finals last weekend. The second modification has been to grant the possibility, to a few chosen tennis players, of course, of training on the central court before playing there. Its use had always been reserved exclusively for official confrontations, with the intention of not only taking care of its herb as if it were a precious stone placed in a chest, but also with that of defending its legendary status.

I have no doubt that both alterations, subtle for the rest of us mortals, will have caused not a few diatribes and debates in the board of directors. It seems that the great Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa inspired you with the witty and famous phrase from his only work, The Leopard (The Leopard): “If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change (If we want everything to continue as it is, everything must change)”.

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