One event on my summer sports calendar that I look forward to every year is Wimbledon. It happens at the right time, right as we officially hit summer and the weather gets warmer. Or at least most years, the weather gets warmer. I don’t know about this year, but it usually does.
Thanks to various backdoor websites, I’ve been able to watch the BBC’s coverage the last three years and I’ve totally enjoyed watching commercial free tennis. Plus the approach to the matches is much different than ESPN2 or NBC. And there’s John McEnroe on the BBC which is totally enjoyable as well. The Beeb amasses a very good commentary team including Tracy Austin, Boris Becker, Tim Henman, Virginia Wade and so many others. For two weeks, it’s tennis heaven.
And when the network caps off its coverage, it puts together a video to different songs every year. Let’s go over the different years. And I’ll go backwards.
Here’s BBC Sport’s promo for this year’s Wimbledon coverage with John McEnroe doing the voiceover.
This is last year’s closing montage after the epic Rafael Nadal-Roger Federer match. Hostess Sue Barker says goodbye and we go into Jamie Callum’s These Are the Days. My favorite part is at 1:19 when the girl disses her boyfriend. Classic.
Let’s go to 2007, the final year for Tim Henman and the last time Roger Federer won the Big W and it was over Rafa. And there seemed to be lots of rain this particular year. The song is “Let There Be Love” sung by the legendary Nat King Cole.
In 2005, it was abnormally hot in London and Venus Williams won the ladies final and Roger Federer was in the midst of total domination at Wimbledon. The song is “That’s Life” by Francis Albert Sinatra.
Let’s go back to 1999 when Lindsay Davenport won Wimbledon over Steffi Graf and Pete Sampras defeated his good friend, Andre Agassi. The BBC used three different songs to put this montage together.
Here’s the montage from 1996. I recognize Tim Henman, Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, Monica Seles, Arancha Sanchez-Vicario, Mary-Jo Fernandez, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras.
And lastly, we go back to 1988. This is a long video and had to broken up in two parts. This is fun to watch. You had Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Steffi Graf, Michael Chang, Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Jennifer Capriati and Hana Mandlikova. The BBC host for this event was Des Lynam.
And here’s part 2. Chris Evert makes an appearance. It’s rather long. And this is the year Steffi Graf won the Grand Slam Plus One which included the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. And it cuts off before you see Stefan Edberg defeating Boris Becker. Why I know these off the top of my head scares me.
Finally, here’s the 1987 montage using Huey Lewis & The News’ “Walking on a Thin Line”? I’m traumatized. I’ve recognized, Martina, Jimmy, Yannick Noah, Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Chrissie and big time tennis fan Princess Diana.
That’s going to do it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk back in time through the Wimbledon montages.
