Gods of Tennis explores a fierce story about the epic battles that turned tennis upside down | Television

mMy earliest memories of two weeks of Wimbledon are of having to quietly let myself into the house after school and then crawl through the sitting room on command on my way to the kitchen for a snack so I could get a possible match point for my mom and her watching buddies. These were exciting times, made even more tense by the fact that it was the Bjrn Borg-John McEnroe era. One half of the audience would be for the quiet Swede (including Mama, because he wouldn’t get under your feet) and the other for the hyperactive You can’t be serious, the ball was in! American. Oh, be quiet, Mama and I would snarl, in one of our rare moments of temperamental unity.

The BBC’s three-part documentary Gods of Tennis lets fans relive those relatively quiet days, with the first episode focusing on the slightly earlier era of Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe. To explore the pair’s impact on the game, contemporary footage is juxtaposed 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 installments, Borg and McEnroe himself). And for some reason Miriam Margolyes.

Leading up to the early 1970s, we hear that King and Ashe helped kick the world of tennis and scream for a more egalitarian era. After King received prize money worth two-thirds of what her male counterpart Rod Laver received when they each won their respective singles titles in 1968, she began the fight for equal pay with men (men just automatically think all the money is theirs , she notes, dry). To counter arguments that there was less money in the women’s game because of less public and therefore commercial interest, King set up an all-women’s tennis circuit and soon attracted huge audiences and tons of sponsorship money. Less formally, through her own presence and demeanor on the court, she challenged the idea (even more prevalent then than now, though it’s far from gone) that female players are mostly sweetly presentable, non-aggressive, and not too clearly out to win. have to stay. .

Evert shaking her head at several points at her youthful naivety and ignorance of what King was trying to do was her biggest opponent on the field and the darling of the media. However, the attempts always these attempts to pit the two women against each other on a personal level seem to have failed at the time. Both former players still look at each other with warmth and admiration.

Meanwhile, Ashe battled systemic racism in tennis. In 1973, he became the first black player to compete in South Africa’s national championship, demanding a non-segregated competition and audience. South African writer Mark Mathabane, who went on a pilgrimage as a boy to see Ashe and then became a lifelong friend, says: He made me realize that apartheid was based on a lie.

Performing on every court in an increasingly televised era, Ashe became an increasingly clear and public refutation of racist claims about what black people could and could not do. In 1975, he defeated reigning champion Jimmy Connors in four sets to become the first black winner of the men’s singles title at Wimbledon, with a brilliant and carefully crafted tactical game that required nerves of steel. (It’s not mentioned in the program, which focuses on Wimbledon’s history after turning pro in 1968, but in 1957 Althea Gibson became the first black person ever to lift a singles trophy there.)

After the first episode, which features subjects who were undoubtedly pioneers and activists who really made a difference in the game, things loosen up a bit. The focus is shifting to the overall effect of changing times on tennis and its players rather than the other way around to the advent of serious sponsorship deals in the 1980s, increased tabloid attention, and so on. Much more time is spent on footage of key matches between titans, and the weight of the opener is lost. Instead, it becomes more of a pleasant trot through the highlights of the last 30 years at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, however nice it is to relive some hugely exciting points, especially before power serve came to dominate the game. Nevertheless, you feel there is a lack of attention beyond a cursory mention of the end of wooden rackets of the changing nature of the game itself.

There are still moments of significance now and then, but they only emphasize how much more priority should have been given to, say, Navratilova and King’s outing (and the sly references and toxic undercurrents that had dogged them from the start of their careers) or the obstacles overcome by players who had to leave their homelands and families if they wanted to exercise their amazing gifts. It may have been worth noting that some gods are more divine than others.