The third and final episode in the BBC's hyperbolically entitled mini-series on some of the stories from Wimbledon in the 70s and 80s surrounding some of the best players of that era. You could argue that some of the choices were a little selective, after all Arthur Ashe only won it once, even as I totally concede the cultural and historical significance of his being the first time to date still only black player to win the championship (although a great female black player, Althea Gibson, has already won the Ladies Title years before). But certainly watching the episodes on the men's game, which naturally featured the Bjorn Borg / John McEnroe rivalry, let's just say that I wasn't surprised that there was no participation at all from, say Jimmy Connors, who also won the championship three times in the same era. You could also make a case for the Australians Margaret Court, admittedly now a divisive non-PC figure in the sport and the popular Evonne Goolagong / Cawley, who both also had interesting if very different back-stories about which it might have been good to learn something about.
Anyway, putting my quibbling aside, this final episode focused on the rivalry between Chrissie Evert-Lloyd and Martina Navratilova.
We started by seeing how the then Miss Evert usurped Billie Jean King of her tennis queen status but with her vanilla upbringing and general image, not much time or attention is really paid to her in the programme. The meatier personal story which the programme-makers do latch onto is that of the former Czech Martina, who defected from the communist regime of her home country to later take on American citizenship and in so doing pursue her dream of being the top player in the world. She was also one of the first high-profile sport stars to be outed for their homosexuality, a fate which also befell King, but although an obviously significant event in her life, it's for some reason not dwelled on as much as her conversion to capitalism.
I loved the archival tennis clips and the frank interviews with Chris and Martina themselves but the coterie of talking heads adding their tuppence-worth, including some pretentious journalists and the likes of Claire Balding and before her Jonathon Ross, I could easily have done without.
Like the other two preceding episodes, I felt the producers were sometimes selective, safe and conformist with the narratives they chose to run with as I'm sure a little extra digging and more inclusive interviews with the selected stars might have given this programme a big more heft than the sometimes whitewashed nostalgia-fest it often ended up looking like.
Still, if like me, you're a confirmed nostalgist when it comes to things like sports, movies and music you'll probably enjoy this lightly entertaining and mildly informative sporting documentary which attended to treat its subjects wirh a safe baseline strategy than with a more aggressive serve and volley approach.
