With Wimbledon now underway, we Britains can no doubt look forward to at least a few days of media excitement as our few, very few, top class tennis players do their best. History suggests that their best will be utterly insufficient to achieve much more than a win in the first round, with the only possible exception being Andy Murray.
Murray plays tomorrow and has a quite difficult draw; that his chances of actually winning the championship are pretty well zero will bypass the press until he is beaten, when they will engage in the usual national pastime of berating our failures, together with a liberal dose of 'breast-beating'.
Apart from Murray, we have no one, male or female, of whom we can have much expectation that they will progress very far. It is likely that our other male participants will fall at the first hurdle although it is already determined that one of our ladies will take her place in the second round. Young Heather Watson played with great skill and determination to beat Iveta Benesova, a player ranked many places above her, in straight sets and on centre court; she will now face an unseeded American in the second round and must have a sporting chance of winning a place in the last 32. Tomorrow we can hope that Laura Robson, Elena Baltacha and Ann Keothavong can emulate Watson's performance and, at least, reach round 2.
One day we will have another British champion; one day.
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