Skip to main content

Gods of Tennis review – a hefty tale of the epic battles that rocked tennis

Billie Jean King battles for female equality and Arthur Ashe fights against systemic racism in this documentary series. It’s a hefty tale, joined by on-court sagas between sporting giants

My earliest memories of Wimbledon fortnight are of having to let myself silently into the house after school and then commando-crawl across the sitting room on my way to the kitchen for a snack, so that I didn’t obscure a potential match point for my mother and her viewing friends. They were tense times, made tenser by the fact that it was the Björn Borg-John McEnroe era. One half of the audience would be rooting for the silent Swede (including Mum, on the grounds that “he’d not get under your feet”) and the other for the hyperactive “You cannot be serious – the ball was in!” American. “Oh, be quiet,” Mum and I would snarl, in one of our rare moments of temperamental unity.

The BBC’s three-part documentary Gods of Tennis allows fans to relive those relatively halcyon days, with its first episode focusing on the slightly earlier era of Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe. To examine the impact the pair had on the game, contemporaneous footage is interspersed with interviews with King (Ashe died in 1993), sports journalists, other players and champions (including Sue Barker, Pam Shriver, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and, in later instalments, Borg and McEnroe themselves). And, for some reason, Miriam Margolyes.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/JYxAfPH
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

England booed off after failing against Iceland once more in Euros warm-up

It was a long way from being the triumphant Euro 2024 send-off for Gareth Southgate and his England players at a sold-out and increasingly fretful Wembley. Never mind the result because it was not the main thing, however much it stirred memories of you-know-when against Iceland. It was the performance that raised the difficult questions, the worst one for quite some time and at exactly the wrong time. The home fans, thousands of whom made for the exits before the end, were forced to watch the second half – from about minute 55 onwards – through the gaps between their fingers. And it had not been great before that. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/4ndfQL0
Post a Comment
Read more

Manchester City in title driving seat after cruising to win at Leeds

The title stare-off becomes steelier with each week. Elland Road was at its raucous best and a highly motivated Leeds played well enough to ensure Manchester City rarely neared full stride. Nevertheless the leaders mastered the situation, showing they can win via set pieces when means of higher aesthetic merit elude them. Rodri and Nathan Aké proved the point with goals in each half, garnished later by Gabriel Jesus’ sixth in three matches and a Fernandinho daisycutter, and Pep Guardiola’s delight at the outcome was obvious. This had been a possible banana skin, with the potential leveller of such a highly charged atmosphere; instead City cruise on and Leeds, who are in genuine danger of going down, must seek more viable routes to safety. This encounter had an edge from the outset. It needed to, because the heat had been turned up on both teams. City would have expected Liverpool to achieve what was necessary at Newcastle; Leeds might not have banked on Burnley’s turnaround at Watford...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bins ‘overflowing’ in parts of England as Covid hits collections

Staff sickness in areas including London, Gloucestershire and Somerset leads to waste services being scaled back Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Bins across parts of England are reportedly “overflowing” with rubbish from the festive period due to Covid-related staff shortages. London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire are among the areas where councillors have warned that bin collections are being scaled back because of staff sickness. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3qIHK0C
Post a Comment
Read more