Aidan Williams delves into the sensitive subject of tennis crowds.
I can remember 2019, being at the French Open for the first time. I had been going to tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon, for many years. But now I was meeting the notorious French crowds for the first time.
I was stunned. I felt like I was in a Colosseum, not a tennis environment. I was a regional sports reporter at the time and I knew what this was, it was the perfect sporting occasion. I'd felt a feisty environment not long ago when covering a football (soccer for those in the U.S.) match between Weymouth and Slough Town. This was atmosphere was impossible to ignore. Crowds like that, moments like that, make sport.
The point here is between the lines. I'd been going to Wimbledon for about six years and after the initial shock of my first couple of visits, I soon realised I'd have to get lucky to have that feeling at SW19.
There are positives to British crowds. We are generally a polite bunch as tennis fans. Even against a heavy home favourite, we'll almost always applaud every point and player regardless of who it goes to. We're also pretty good at not applauding bad errors or double faults. If it's late on in a match that looks to be heading to an upset for a British player we sometimes forget our composure but it's seldom disrespectful.
It struggles to create a truly incredible atmosphere though as there's never any fire. Less passion, more general appreciation, which is almost always without energy. Being new to realising my own neurodivergence I'll concede I perhaps pick up on this more: I find it difficult to mirror in a lot of British crowds and great ones stand out a lot more to me.
No malice
It makes the complaints of Novak Djokovic about the British crowd at this year's Wimbledon all the more confusing. I just don't see the malice in British crowds, we don't have enough energy to create an environment in which malice can even be born.
Make no mistake, I can see why crowds might chant Rune in a way that sounds like booing but again, I'd argue there's no malice in it. Put the pitchforks down, I'll explain. Malice is the intention behind an action. You're trying to harm someone, I don't think that intent was there at all.
It sounds like the most British sense of humour I can think of. I can see how we might get carried away with it, but again I think the intent to harm Djokovic wasn't there. It was just a dumb joke. Every crowd I've been in with Djokovic has been very respectful to him. I was on Centre for Cameron Norrie against Alexander Zverev, the former being a Brit and the latter having recent allegations against him than many find difficult to ignore, yet they were still perfectly respectful to the German.
The worst moment I probably saw was when Djokovic played Popyrin. The crowd burst into applause because half the crowd had been keeping an eye on the football instead of one of the greatest athletes tennis has ever seen. The crowd stopped play with ridiculous applause because we hadn't been paying attention, celebrated a penalty shootout win over Switzerland at Euro 2024. Yet Novak responded with good humour. He mimed taking a penalty which Popyrin then mimed saving. It was funny.
Large swathes of the crowd were backing Rune. Unfortunately for Djokovic, he's been so dominant that the most interesting outcome is always him losing. Fans want to say they were there in big, dramatic moments, so the gut feeling of the crowd would have been wanting him to lose, or at least be taken to a fourth or fifth set. He's the victim of his own success in that regard, yet I still don't think it was malicious.
I can see why in the moment Djokovic probably thought it was, but let's not pretend British tennis crowds are anything other than very polite the vast majority of the time.
Rude or malicious? No, just a dumb joke that went down as poorly as a Rune forehand that day. But Novak seems to thrive in such environments, and his response does bring a pantomime element to tennis that this observer doesn't object to.
Do you prefer a feisty tennis atmosphere?
Yes, it adds to the occasion
No, tennis is not for hooligans
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