Through the early 1970s a long-running West End drawing-room comedy contained the line ╥I hear Virginia╒s doing very well at Wimbledon.╙ For eleven months it was just a bit of dialogue in a weary, dreary play. But for every night of July, it was received by the whole house with a groaning sort of titter, a tittering sort of groan. Even the Yanks got the point. For in July the knowledge was still heavy in our breast that Virginia had flunked the big one yet again.
For almost a decade now, Miss Wade╒s Wimbledon woe has seemed the longest-running tragedy of our whole drama season. She╒s been going to win the thing, no doubt about it, every year since 1967. This spectacular annual failure ╤ especially those times when such comparative nonentities as Christine Sandberg or Ceri Martinez have put her out ╤ has unfairly clouded appreciation and gratitude for her in this country, where eight out of ten people, I fancy, reckon top tennis is only played seriously for the last two weeks of June in SW19. But in the year-long and wickedly tough international circuit, Virginia Wade has been one of the leading five woman players in the world for a long, long time now. Sure, she╒s made a lot of money flying the flag. Profit, certainly, but not much honour in her own country.
Now watch her win the Wightman. But, dearie me, we are guaranteed a few palpitations on the way. That goes without saying when our Sarah Virginia comes home to play ╤ remember that time at Nottingham a couple of years back when she was one set, 9-8 and 40-love up on her own serve to Evonne Goolagong ╤ and still blew the thing?
Take last weekend: on Friday night at the Albert Hall she played the perky little whizz-bang merchant, Sue Barker, in the Dewar Cup semi-finals. The press had set it all up as for the British Women╒s championship. So what happens? Miss Barker, totally unconcerned, goes out and swipes away merrily; Miss Wade, a dozen years the senior and winner of Forest Hills the year after Sue had passed her 11-plus, is a bag of nerves, grunting and groaning like an overacting wrestler, scowling like an over- reacting dowager, her cheeks blotchily-purple.
Somehow she muddles through in the end, thanks mostly to Miss Barker╒s late flush of generosity. ╥Yes, it╒s ludicrous to get so nervous. But I do, and it seems there╒s nothing I can do about it,╙ she admits afterwards.
But Friday╒s tetchy spinster is Saturday╒s blooming bombshell. Away with the twitch and in with the sunshine. Against the incomparable Chris Evert there╒s not a nerve end to be seen. The world╒s No. 1, who hadn╒t lost a match in thirty since April, is swept from the court by a performance of bold, bracing beauty. ╥I have honestly never played better. I have tried so many times to out-think Chrissie, but this time I just decided to go out and out-play her,╙ Miss Wade said.
She plays Miss Evert again tonight. But Saturday╒s win has already put her team in splendid heart. At the Crystal Palace yesterday, there was a hale and healthy confidence about the British side. Virginia is very much chief monitor, head girl. The juniors, as well as the opposition, delight in talking about her. Behind her back of course. Confided one: ╥We╒re taught and taught that the whole game today depends on percentage play, and being fully aware of the decisive points in a match, the ones you absolutely must win. Not Virginia: she╒d rather lose spectacularly than win ordinarily, prefer to lose a brilliant rally than win a point by an unforced error.╙
Miss Wade╒s philosophy appeals to more than me. She has a sizeable fan club around the world. For those who like their dame to be more haughty than hearty, as bright as buttons yet as black as thunder, ever arrogant yet ever vulnerable, nice-nasty, beauty-beast, she is a veritable Miss World of any year.
Imagine Princess Anne playing Mrs Robinson in the Benenden production of The Graduate and you╒re getting the picture. In 1973 the American poet, Galway Kinnell, sent over a profile of praise and devotion. He had fallen for Miss Wade╒s ╥incredible lionlike beauty╙ at Forest Hills. ╥She was,╙ he wrote, ╥the last amateur in the big time, the last utterly human player╔ She not only ignores, but appears to despise, what one might call the second-rate virtues: precision, steadiness, patience and cunning. She pursues absolute tennis, tennis by which its inner necessity will not only do that gross thing, win, but will also be recorded and remembered, stroke by stroke, much as a great championship chess match is remembered.╙
Christopher Brasher (who else?) once wrote that ╥there was someone somewhere who could do for Virginia Wade what Franz Stampfl did for Roger Bannister╙ and make her the best in the world every day.
For my money, I think we should all praise the Lord and pass the motion that Virginia stays just as she is. Miss Barker╒s coming along fine, to be sure, but except for those who sit on horses, Miss Wade is surely our only world-class sportsgirl worth writing home about. Only two reservations: I wish she wouldn╒t squat with such straining Arabian determination when she waits to receive service, or be quite so shirty sullen with meek little linesmen.
11 November, 1976
Virginia Wade is the Wimbledon champion at last ╤ and it didn╒t matter one jot that it was one of the worst finals in memory. The day will be long recalled for the ecstatic scenes at the very end when the Queen gave her the trophy and even starchy All England men and matrons relaxed upper lips and thunderously let go with ╥For she╒s a jolly good fellow╙. Whether the anthem was addressed to the Queen or Miss Wade they cared not a fig. And nor did England.
But, by jove, Miss Wade made the nation sweat as ever. She has been trying to win the thing for 16 years now and it was not until well into the afternoon that nails stopped being bitten. She beat the mountainous Dutch girl, Betty Stove, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Miss Wade╒s first year at Wimbledon was in 1962 and coincided with the Queen╒s first visit. Afterwards Virginia said it had been so joyously noisy that she had not heard all the Queen had said to her at the end. ╥It didn╒t matter, it was just great to see her lips moving.╙
Rampant patriotism apart, it must be said that it was an awfully dank, dull match full of terrible unforced bloomers by both girls. The Queen╒s long-known aversion to lawn tennis cannot have been changed. Indeed she had pulled on her white gloves, was straightening her skirt, glancing at the clock and looking to get away to the tea-time racing results mid-way through the third set.
From the start both players were as nervous as field mice at harvesting, the Dutch girl seemingly the less so, for she won the first set ╤ at the end of which you could probably hear the silence a mile away. It looked as if we were in for the biggest anti-climax since the Titanic similarly came across something large and unexpected all those years ago.
It was 3-3 in the second set before the despairing, muttered prayers of 14,000 people got through to their girl in the cathedral. It worked! Virginia reeled off seven games on the trot to take the second set and squat, unassailable, on a 4-0 lead in the last.
The power of prayer! Miss Wade╒s father, a retired archdeacon, also did his stuff. ╥Yes,╙ he admitted before the match, ╥I did pray for Virginia this morning.╙ Though he added after some meditative thought: ╥But then I always pray for everyone each morning.╙
