'Churlish' Rory McIlroy next golf star to get book treatment from Alan Shipnuk
Phil Mickelson's biographer Alan Shipnuck is writing a book about Rory McIlroy.Shipnuck's highly entertaining 'LIV and Let Die' chronicled the rise of the rebel golf tour, while his Mickelson tome 'Phil' lifted the lid on the divisive six-times major winner's career.
The Californian author is fascinated with the life and times of the sport's newest Grand Slam winner and his book on McIlroy is due on the shelves in March 2026.
"I've spent the last year thinking about Rory McIlroy because he's going to be my next book, and I'm probably 60% done," said the famed American writer. "I have many thoughts about Rory. It's been fascinating to watch this existential crisis he's going through since the Masters and everyone has a theory."
Shipnuck revealed to the Indo Sport podcast that he had tried to involve McIlroy in the process but the 35-year-old didn't want to be interviewed specifically for the book.
"It's going to be fun to read because I'm having fun writing it, that's always my test," he said. "As a writer you have to be your hardest critic but I've had a lot of fun writing it. He's had a big colourful life and has touched a lot of people along the way.
"I said this to Rory, that the last two books I did were big and controversial but I'd like this to be a bit more fun and celebratory because I think there's a lightness to his being. I'm not getting sucked into the recency bias, I'm looking at the whole scale of his career and there's been a lot of joy there. It's going to be an intimate portrait.
"We actually had a conversation in the parking lot in Oakmont on Sunday that was really fascinating. I've got to save it for the book but a lot of things were revealed, I'll say that, and it told me so much about Rory. It was very helpful for the book.
"A huge part of the Rory brand is the down to earth or human superstar - and a lot of us hope he doesn't lose that because then he loses some of his appeal."
After winning at Augusta for the first time in April, thus completing the fabled Grand Slam after a 14-year wait, McIlroy refused to talk to the media during the next major tournament - the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
He did a press conference ahead of the US Open at Oakmont last week but didn't talk again until Saturday, when he was uncharacteristically short with his answers and seemed fed up, although he perked up after his final round 67 as he looked forward to The Open's return to Portrush next month.
"I think there's a few things going on and he talked about it, it's just the let down of chasing this dream," said Shipnuck. "But when Phil won the Masters in 2004 to break through after about a dozen years of being the best player with a major, and all the questions about him, that was as cathartic a win as Rory's was.
"And Phil just kept going, he had his best year that year and came back and won majors the next year and the year after - you don't have to have a huge let down."Rory's an emotional player, just like Phil was, and I think he's just out of emotion. He just looks so flat on and off the golf course. This churlish version of Rory, is this the real Rory and for 18 years it's been this incredible facade and he was so widely admired and so classy and everyone admired him?
"We thought that was the real Rory, but was that all pretend? It makes your head spin thinking about how much he's changed in such a short period of time."
Shipnuck can't wait to see how McIlroy reacts to his Portrush return after the drama of his missed cut there in 2019. "I think Portrush is going to be fascinating, and he alluded to this as he was leaving Oakmont," he said.
"Like, if he can't summon any energy or emotion to play The Open at Portrush, the course where he shot 61 when he was 16 and that really began his legend, and after what happened last time around when he made eight on the first hole and that incredible Friday when the entire island of Ireland was cheering him on to try to make the cut and the tears, if he goes back there and he just doesn't look like he's into it, then you really have to question what is this last act of his career going to look like.
"Clearly it would have been better for Rory if the Masters was on in September and he could have just taken six months off.
"I can't believe he's playing this week (at the Travelers) in Connecticut, why is he doing this to himself? Why is he putting himself through it? It's incredible. He just looks so miserable on the golf course and obviously it's affecting his play.
"Portrush is just going to be fascinating theatre and if he can dig deep and find something there...but if doesn't, I'm definitely concerned for what this means going forward."
Shipnuck claimed that the emotional reaction to McIlroy's Masters triumph was less about the golf played than the appreciation of the Holywood man as a person, and how he has carried the burden of trying to complete the slam.
"He had worn this burden and had let us into his heart and soul. That's why the Masters resonated so much," he stressed. "It's the way Rory has let us in that has made people so invested in his accomplishments - and his failures.
"So it's been interesting to read on social media how people have quickly said, 'I'm kind of over this guy'. Eighteen years of goodwill, a lot of it has been incinerated in two months."He can get it back, of course, but there's been this sense of let down, it's almost taken away from some of the Masters win. The feelings we all had in April, they've been diminished and now there's these weird questions and weird energy.
"It's totally self-induced, it just feels like it's not as much fun as it was. Rory made it fun to be a golf fan and it's less fun right now, and it's not good for anyone."
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The 42
an hour ago
- The 42
'It's a bit like an electric shock going through you' - Meet the only Irishman at Wimbledon
THE MEN'S AND women's draws at Wimbledon will again be untroubled by Irish players this year, but that's not to say the iconic tournament is entirely free of Irish influence. Fergus Murphy is one of just seven chair umpires given that, er, elevated status by the ATP, and has been in the high chair at Grand Slam events since 1995. In that time he has overseen the 2023 Wimbledon men's final and has had several tempestuous run-ins with some of the greats of the game. Novak Djokovic questions Fergus Murphy during the 2023 men's Wimbledon final, won by Carlos Alcaraz. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo The Slams, though, are extracurricular events, as they are not run by the ATP. Throw in the Davis and Laver Cups and Murphy spends around eight months a year on the road, and away from his Dublin home. 'I still remember it like it was yesterday', Murphy tells The 42. 'When I started, one lady said to me, 'Oh, is that a job?' So that was a complete putdown.' It certainly is a job, and Murphy, now 54, has been doing it for more than 30 years. He describes him as an 'okay player' in his youth, and the sport's gravitational pull drew him into the Irish umpires' association, which he joined in the late 1980s. He officiated open events at the likes of Carrickmines, Donnybrook, and Lansdowne, along with Davis Cup ties. He noticed colleagues travelling to England each summer to work at Queen's and Wimbledon, and eventually followed their path too, after a few initial rejections. Officials' performances were constantly evaluated, and so one's record eventually speaks for itself. Murphy had started a law degree by the time his made noise among the right people, and he decided to put his studies on brief pause to commit full-time to umpiring. 'I said I'll do it for a year,' says Murphy, 'and then it became 30.' He is speaking to me from his hotel in Stuttgart, where he is officiating an ATP event ahead of Wimbledon. Murphy's lifestyle is analogous to the elite players: whereas the lower-ranked players are chasing ranking points wherever they can be found, the best generally follow a familiar circuit. Hence, says Murphy, he is constantly on the road, but constantly returning to the same places. 'It's like going home every week,' he says, 'but to a different type of home.' 'If you want a 9 to 5 and and sleep in your own bed every night, this isn't for you,' he says. 'But it's nice to go back to places. You nearly always know the staff that are there, there's obviously your co-workers that you know, and you get to know the cities pretty well.' And just as camaraderie is the luxury of the elite players on tour, Murphy's exclusive band of chair umpires often find themselves travelling together, which makes for a dinner gathering that can pass the time but also provide a measure of emotional support. 'In terms of longevity, it helps to just look after yourself if you're having a tough time, and talk to other colleagues about it,' he says. 'Maybe don't overemphasise something, like, if there's a small error that you make, don't blow it out of proportion into a big thing. Everybody makes mistakes. Advertisement 'If you have a good group of people around you, especially when you're traveling, you can say, 'This happened to me today', and then someone will say, 'Oh, that happened to me last week', and you just feel like you're not the only one. But I think the nature of the job is where we're always driven for the 100%.' Murphy still gets a rush of adrenaline a couple of hours before every match, which he says helps focus the mind and ward off arguably the job's biggest challenge: keeping concentration. 'Most of the time,' he says, 'nothing happens.' So while there can be hours in which nothing happens, there can be seconds in which everything happens. Tennis matches can be stressful, tempestuous worlds, and those at its core usually like to reserve their lashings for those in near-orbit. A condition of our interview is that Murphy would not talk about individual players, but he has had several high-profile run-ins with some of the sport's biggest stars. At the Madrid Open, for instance, Murphy courted the scorn of Rafa Nadal and the jeers of a partisan crowd when he denied the Spaniard a challenge, saying his gesture was not sufficiently clear. An affronted Nadal called for the court supervisor. Stefanos Tsitsipas last year went on strike mid-match in response to a time violation handed down by Murphy, saying he would not budge until the court supervisor arrived. 'You have never played tennis in your life, you have no clue about tennis it seems, you are probably playing serve and volley every single time,' ranted Tsitsipas. 'Tennis is a physical sport and we need some time over here, you have to show some compassion. We are not throwing darts out here.' Nick Kyrgios – an equal-opportunity scorner of officials – has had a couple of ugly episodes with Murphy, and in 2019 called him 'a potato with legs and arms' and 'the worst ref in the game.' The ATP fined Kyrgios $113,000. 'I'm human just like everybody else,' says Murphy on the general issue of player abuse, though not in specific reference to any of the above. 'I don't think anybody likes being the target of something. Unfortunately for us, that is part of our job. We're the one making the decisions and most of the time when you make a decision, 50% of your clients won't be happy. 'Sometimes they accept it. But when the temperature rises, I think you have to look at it in a kind of a matter of fact way, that it's part of the job. But it does affect you. You have to learn to just push it to the side and really not see it as a personal attack. Quite often, you know, you'll see the player later that day in the hotel.' Among Kyrgios' rants at other officials includes a warning to Carlos Bernardes of his imminent obsolesence. 'It's all electronically done now, so you're actually doing nothing apart from calling the score, by the way, which any tennis fan could do right now,' raved Kyrgios, 'Sit in the chair and just say, 15-Love, Game Kyrgios, Game Sinner. Do you know what I mean? Like that's really all he has to do.' The reality is the chair umpire does a lot more than that, and the advance in technology has not automatically brought an end to players' venting their fury at officials. While line calls have become automised and less contentious, the umpire is still in charge of enforcing rules around challenges, a shot clock, and sportsmanlike behaviour. The policing of these, along with the need to manage players' tantrums, shows the job remains an art as much as a science. Technology continues to encroach, however, and this edition of Wimbledon will be the first in its 147-year history to proceed without line judges, with all of the calls now ruled by technology. It also means players' won't need to call for challenges anymore: everything has been automated. 'The obvious plus about the technology is the accuracy,' says Murphy. 'It's extremely accurate. It's very reliable and it doesn't get tired. 'The accuracy of the system is very important. What you might lose is more of the ups and downs in a game, because when you have more human involvement, there's bound to be a mistake, or a perceived mistake. Then the player would challenge it, and we'd show it on the board. 'That was a bit exciting for the crowd, the whole moment of 'I thought it was in, I thought it was out.' So that was good for showbiz. 'I would say now that things are more on an even keel because the system is reliable, accurate, and then you can maybe focus more on the tennis. So it just depends on your point of view. Sometimes the ups and downs of tennis are what make it exciting.' Across his long career, Murphy has seen the beginning, middle, and ends of some of the greatest careers in the sport's history, and can appreciate the quality of tennis to which the crowd has been treated. 'Sitting there in the middle of it and seeing shot after shot – some that you've never seen before at that level – plus you throw in the crowd and the atmosphere, it's hard to describe, but it goes right through you,' he says, 'It's a bit like an electric shock going through you when you're in the chair. We don't stand up and cheer and let off fireworks after a good shot, as you are in the middle of it and you are working. Maybe at the earlier stages of my career, I might have been a bit more nervous and a bit more focused on getting the basics right. 'But like anything, if you practice it, then they become a little bit more automatic, which means you have to give less of your brain power to do it because you just do it automatically, or you might see things around the court and stop problems before they happen. 'Having seen so many matches, we know that was a good shot, or you don't see that very often. 'It's a great seat.'
The 42
an hour ago
- The 42
'It's like little Ireland here in Sydney, Irish accents everywhere'
THE BEAUTIFUL BEACHSIDE suburb of Coogee in Sydney is where Mike Catt now calls home. With its glorious sunshine, white sand beach, and crystal-clear waters, it might seem like a world away, but Catt is happy that there are many reminders of Dublin even in Coogee. Having spent five enjoyable, successful seasons working as an assistant coach with Andy Farrell's Ireland, Catt enjoys hearing from the many Irish expats around the place. 'It's like little Ireland here, Irish accents everywhere,' he says. Catt is now attack coach for the Waratahs, who face Farrell's Lions in Sydney next Saturday. There are many familiar faces in the Lions' ranks. Farrell has four of his Ireland assistants with him, a host of backroom staff, and 16 Irish players. Catt is looking forward to catching up. He shares great memories with them, including their 2023 Grand Slam, 2024 Six Nations title, and 2022 series success in New Zealand. Catt still has a strong sense of 'what if' about the 2023 World Cup. He speaks fondly about Irish rugby and is a huge admirer of Farrell's leadership, so it was difficult for Catt to walk away from the Ireland set-up last summer following the tour to his native South Africa. But family came first. His son, Ellis, was with him in Ireland and loved playing rugby in Blackrock College but Catt's two daughters, Evie and Erin, were in the UK and his wife, Ali, was over and back non-stop. 'I was just like, 'What am I doing?'' says Catt. 'I needed to spend time with my family. I wanted us all to be together. 'I asked Faz if I would be able to commute and he said no. Fair play, from day one he said he wanted me to be in Ireland and he stuck by that. And I had the most amazing time there.' So Catt started to look for his next job. Australian coach Dan McKellar was in charge of Leicester and gave Catt a shout. When McKellar then had to move on from Tigers at the end of the 2023/24 season, he got the top job back at home with the Waratahs. He called Catt again and landed his man on a three-year deal. The Catt family after Ireland's 2024 Six Nations triumph. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO Catt wanted to get back into club rugby for the first time in over a decade because of the day-to-day coaching aspect, yet Super Rugby having a relatively short season was appealing, as was the chance to work in a different part of the world. Ali's father lives in Brisbane and they have friends elsewhere on the east coast. So far, only Catt and 14-year-old Ellis have made the full-time move over, setting up a 'little man cave,' but the girls are due to follow in a month, with important studies completed in the UK. Five years with Ireland have left an imprint on Catt. He lists off Farrell, Paul O'Connell, Simon Easterby, David Nucifora, Johnny Sexton, Garry Ringrose, Tadhg Beirne, and Tadhg Furlong as examples of the 'calibre of people' he worked with. 'It was just their want to be successful,' says Catt. 'It's just incredible how good Irish rugby is with the limited number of players there. It's unbelievable how successful they are. I don't think people appreciate that at all. 'Irish people are amazing people, that work ethic across the board. One of the biggest things is that there were no egos in Ireland team. 'You know, you just wish that… the Grand Slam wasn't enough, you know, we needed something bigger than that and unfortunately the cards don't fall like that. That's sport, but what I've learned out of that was unbelievable.' Catt joined Ireland after four years with Italy and worked closely with Farrell on the attack, which suffered from teething issues in the first year but gradually became world-leading and was mimicked by other teams. Advertisement 'We got that understanding into the players and they started to be curious enough for it to happen,' says Catt. 'We coached the decision-making. It did look like we were very structured and yes, we were but the decision-making and the coaching of that and the calmness that you do it in, that was where I think we took the game to another level.' Upskilling the Irish tight five forwards was key to Ireland's plans to cut teams apart with their phase-play attack, with Farrell and Catt taking inspiration from the highly-skilled All Blacks team that won the 2011 and 2015 World Cups. Catt in South Africa with Ireland last summer. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO Making Irish players fitter than anyone was another important measure, while Sexton was highly influential in creating that brilliant Irish attack. But Catt underlines that Farrell is the brains and heart of everything good Ireland have done in recent years. The first thing he highlights is Farrell's exceptional technical and tactical knowledge of the game, something Catt finds even more impressive given Farrell's rugby league background. The Ireland and Lions boss is a huge student of union and Catt says Farrell can discuss the angle of props' elbows in scrums with as much knowledge as he can attack shape or defence systems. Secondly, there is Farrell's searing honesty and ability to give players precise and consistent messages. Catt's record as a player was remarkable. He won the 1999 World Cup in England, two Grand Slams, three other Five/Six Nations titles, toured with the Lions twice, and was part of a Bath team that won the Heineken Cup and three Premierships. His coaching career has included roles with London Irish, England [working alongside Farrell], Italy, Ireland, and now the Waratahs. So he's a good judge of authenticity. 'I've worked with so many head coaches in the past that, as a player, you look at him and you go, 'Yeah, that's just bullshit,'' says Catt. 'You know they're just saying it for the sake of saying it. 'Whereas Faz has the knack of just being totally genuine, and what he says is so relevant in that moment.' And for all the talk of the happy camps Farrell creates, Catt says there is never any confusion around the main goal of his teams. 'We had such fun. Faz loves a drink, he loves a song on the guitar, he loves the social, but it's about winning. 'If you can get the balance right, great, but it's not about good environments and stuff. It's about winning. This Lions tour is about winning.' Catt and the Waratahs hope to put a spanner in the Lions' works on Saturday. His first season with the Sydney side has been enjoyable and challenging. They started the campaign brightly but faded away and finished with six wins from 14 games, missing out on the play-offs. Catt with Andy Farrell. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO The last few years have been fairly tumultuous for the Tahs and they are in the process of a rebuild in their squad and staff, all while playing in the 'pretty brutal competition' that is Super Rugby Pacific. Catt loves working hands-on with players every day, so different to the on-off nature of international coaching windows. One of the biggest differences he has seen between Irish players and their Aussie counterparts is how obsessed they are with rugby. He recounts how many Irish players would watch Super Rugby, Top 14, and anything else they could in their spare time. There are a few union nerds in the Waratahs squad too, but many others tune into rugby league, Aussie rules, and other sports when they're away from the club's training base. Catt explains that there are lots of Australian players who struggle with kicking technique and strategy because they simply don't kick the ball much when they're growing up. The good weather lends itself to keeping the ball in hand, which can cause issues down the line when Aussie teams clash with tactically astute Kiwi sides in Super Rugby or step up into the kick-heavy international game. The competition for eyeballs in Australian sport is intense and the reality is that rugby union is well down the pecking order. There are nine NRL clubs in Sydney, two AFL sides, as well as football, cricket, basketball, and netball teams. Catt says that you wouldn't know the Lions were coming to town apart from the odd banner here and there. 'If you're not winning, you don't get a sniff. We had a really good start to the season and then there were 20,000 people turning up and there was a real buzz about it but it drops very quickly when you lose because of what you're competing against. 'This is why I think Australia needs to have a good Lions tour. World rugby needs the Wallabies to be successful. Same with the Waratahs, we need to start winning for us to get bums on seats and inspire kids at a younger age to start loving the game again.' Catt explains how he went to watch his son play in the New South Wales U14 state championships a few weeks ago and was blown away. 'I couldn't believe what I was watching, the talent was phenomenal and you had 115kg kids who are 14,' says Catt. 'The athleticism and skillset was mind-blowing and the question was, 'Where do they all go?' A lot of them get snapped up by the NRL because they're promised the financial reward is much earlier than in union. That's just where we're at and changing that is exceptionally hard. So the Wallabies have to be successful, the Waratahs have to start winning for us to change that momentum.' Catt is enjoying his new challenge Down Under. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Australian rugby did manage to get a young NRL star back across to union in time for this Lions series. Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii didn't come cheap but he has adapted impressively so far, shining for the Wallabies last autumn and for the Tahs this year in Super Rugby. Suaalii has overcome a fractured jaw to return to fitness ahead of the Lions series and Catt says the Lions and the rest of the rugby world will have to watch out. 'He is gonna be exceptional,' says Catt. 'First and foremost, he's just an incredible athlete. Like freakishly, Israel Folau-type. He's 21 years old, he hasn't played a tonne of rugby union, but his professionalism is through the roof. 'He's going to have a few bumpy roads, just part of the journey, but he's come in and he's shown a lot of senior players, especially at the Waratahs, what it actually means to really want something. 'I think the next two to three years for Joseph Suaalii is very special. Australian rugby needs guys like Joseph Suaalii.' Suaalii mainly played at fullback for the Waratahs this year, although Catt reckons Joe Schmidt may use him at outside centre for the Wallabies. And he cites Waratahs wing Max Jorgensen, who is also in Schmidt's squad, as 'unbelievably good' as an athlete and in his feel for the game. Jorgensen is one to watch 'very, very closely,' according to Catt. While those stars are in Wallabies camp preparing for the Lions, the rest of the Waratahs are working hard for Saturday's huge occasion against Farrell's tourists. Catt was in Australia with the Lions as a player in 2001, so he knows exactly how special all of this will be. 'It's huge. It only comes around once every 12 years. So they're very, very fortunate to get this opportunity. And where we are as a squad, a lot of our guys are young, they're going to get an experience playing against the best. 'Not all of them will play for the Wallabies, so for them to do it in front of a packed-out stadium is huge. We haven't had that this year. It's a brilliant challenge.' The Waratahs will undoubtedly be exceptionally well-briefed about what to expect from an Andy Farrell team.
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Anyone for tennis from a burning planet?
Amid the opening-day downpours of Wimbledon in 1922, 'diehard old-timers' declared that the 'wrath of heavens' had unleashed itself upon the Championships. They blamed the sin of ambition: the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, responding to the superstar status of French postwar phenomenon Suzanne Lenglen, had just relocated to new, larger grounds. 'Our hearts were as leaden as the skies,' backroom staff member Norah Gordon Cleather, later the acting club secretary, wrote of that rain-thwarted first day. Walk into Wimbledon today and heaven's wrath will be well hidden. The site in the SW19 postcode of London is a purple-hued playground with textures far lovelier than can be captured by television. Even when it rains and those squads of highly trained teenagers pull the covers over the courts with military speed, there's an aura and a bloom. This is a place to prioritise pleasure. In New York, at the sweltering fourth Grand Slam tournament of the year, the mood can turn darker. READ MORE 'You cannot imagine,' said Daniil Medvedev, the Russian former number one, as he towelled off his hands and face during a 2023 quarter-final he played and won in the oppressive humidity and 33 degrees heat of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Looking straight down the lens of the TV camera next to his towel box, the 2021 US Open champion then flatly stated: 'One player is gonna die, and they're gonna see.' Medvedev is drama prone, but his soliloquy haunts me. I would prefer it if tennis players didn't die for my entertainment. If you watch the sport long enough, you already know how these elite athletes can fall dizzy and faint in the brutal conditions in which they ply their trade. As they dig deeper and push harder to win, heat stress can defeat them, dehydration hospitalise them. Their footwork falters, their shots spray wide. When they say they 'left it all out there on the court', what this sometimes means is they vomited into a courtside bin. Climate shaped tennis in its infancy. The crushed brick of the red clay at the French Open, or Roland-Garros, originated as an 1880s solution to the problem of scorched grass. After newly laid lawn tennis courts at a Cannes hotel were burnt by intense Riviera sun, powdered terracotta was applied to make them playable and more pleasing to the eye. Clay courts soon flourished wherever grass could not survive, the sport going global with the aid of pulverised ceramics. An employee sprays water on the distinctive clay of Court Philippe-Chatrier in Paris during the French Open. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images When the wind picks up, the surface attacks the players, its fine dust getting in their eyes and occasionally unravelling them. Still, the harshness of rogue clay has got nothing on the inhospitable hard courts of Melbourne in January 2020. Here any lingering image of tennis as a game of elegance and glamour was snuffed out by the apocalyptic feel of a city blanketed by bushfire smoke. During one Australian Open qualifying match, Slovenian player Dalila Jakupovic suffered a coughing fit, collapsed to her knees and retired from a winning position , saying afterwards that she had been scared. The match had been delayed by the haze for a single hour. That same day, people in Melbourne had been advised to stay indoors. These stark scenes seem a long way from the genteel, temperate-climate traditions found at Wimbledon and drawn upon by the All England Club to convincing effect. For this year's beautiful official poster, titled Tennis in an English Garden, graphic designer Sarah Madden has imagined the stands as a flower bed, with spectators sitting among hydrangeas, petunias, butterflies and bees as they admire a player exhibiting Lenglenesque grace. The royal box is populated only by flowers. Wimbledon Tennis poster 2025, Tennis in an English Garden by graphic designer Sarah Madden There's no sweat on display, no geopolitics, no confrontation, only serene greenery and the alluring ballet of tennis. When the All England Club says the poster highlights 'Wimbledon's distinctive blend of sport and nature', it doesn't sound like promotional hyperbole but the entire, 19th century-born point. Over the fortnight, the grass starts to die. The baselines go brown – in dry years, they will appear extra-scuffed. But this living surface is managed all year round by grounds staff accustomed to factoring weather variables into the science of court maintenance. They are adept at producing what Cleather, in her 1947-published memoir Wimbledon Story, called 'the velvet lawn'. When you're there, even on finals weekend, any wear-and-tear seems trifling. Instead, everything from the Boston Ivy that clads the exterior of Centre Court to the retractable roofs above the two main show courts conveys a sense of human mastery over the elements. The skill of the players nestles within feats of technology, engineering and horticulture. Sport, the epitome of our pursuit of excellence and a release valve for so many, must adapt fast to this global heating, parching, melting, and that means being prepared to change the rules Such ingenuity is embedded in its history: the creation of lawn tennis in the 1870s was only possible thanks to the invention more than 40 years earlier of the mechanical lawn mower. And yet the advent or spread of an array of sports still thriving today – soccer, golf, cricket, tennis – is more usually situated in the context of the late 19th-century surge in leisure time, a byproduct of industrialisation, almost as if the advances of the industrial revolution itself are too prosaic to dwell upon. Now the realities of climate change – a process set in motion in the century in which so many games were codified and popularised – has made sport vulnerable to visible disruption and material risk. It was a snowless December 2015 working for a ski company in the French Alps that got Madeleine Orr thinking it couldn't 'just be skiing'. Now a sport ecologist, the Canadian academic learned from experience that when a mountain can't 'open' because the snow gods have their own schedule, injuries follow. Skiers are funnelled on to runs with artificial snow, increasing the rate of collision, then the eventual arrival of heavy snow provokes overexcitement. Orr's own venture off-piste ended with multiple knee surgeries, she writes in Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport (2024), which explores how sport has become a victim of climate change, even as it is complicit in it. For evidence of sport's contribution to global warming, look no further than the 'climate crisis, what climate crisis?' approach exemplified by Fifa , the world football governing body, which has seemingly never encountered a stadium construction proposal it didn't like. [ Dangerous heat is a real threat for the 2026 World Cup. Are teams ready? Opens in new window ] Such casually immense carbon footprints rebound on the sport they are intended to benefit. The body keeps the score in the form of heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. When world players' union Fifpro criticises Fifa for not implementing cooling-break and match abandonment policies to the extent it says is necessary, the words of a wilting Medvedev loom large: 'One player is gonna die, and they're gonna see.' Tennis authorities have their own extreme-heat rules and heat-stress scales – in Australia, these have had to be continually re-evaluated, which tells its own story. Climate fears also enter the court in another way, with players now more often finding themselves sharing a workspace with activists equipped with dire warnings and glue. The Australian Open heat policy displayed on day two of the 2023 edition of the tournament in Melbourne Park. Photograph:Wimbledon does not escape. In 2023, Just Stop Oil campaigners protesting the All England Club's partnership deal with fossil-fuel financiers Barclays scattered jigsaw pieces and confetti on the grass . After this, the Wimbledon shop stopped selling jigsaws. A plan to expand the site into an adjacent golf course has also attracted some local ire, with one sign reading 'love tennis, hate concrete' – a perhaps unresolvable inner conflict in the age of mass sport. Before my first visit to Wimbledon in 2022, its rose arbour, ball-shaped topiary and pristine quilt of courts were just BBC backdrops. I thought it was the hot mess of Grand Slam tennis I was seeking: the gladiatorial competition, the chasing down of lost causes, the agony of match points squandered, the audacity of drop shots, the no-look handshakes, the last gasps of glory in injury-stalled careers. As a television viewer, it is the juxtapositions that compel. All sports hinge on rules, precision and fairness, but because tennis is more than averagely wrapped up in etiquette inherited from the Victorian leisure class, emotions and bodily functions that would be unremarkable in other sports can seem incongruous on its hallowed courts. Order and chaos have a habit of colliding, nevertheless. Other species, for instance, seem to love nothing more than rocking up to remind humans they can't control everything. Snakes, bees, cats and various birds have all been known to interrupt play. At Wimbledon, players have had to swat away flying ants with their rackets – the sight of Danish former number one Caroline Wozniacki shaking her personal swarm out of her plait in 2018 was one 'distinctive blend of sport and nature'. [ Everywhere you look in the world of sport now climate change is biting Opens in new window ] Billie Jean King, the legendary champion and equality trailblazer, once defined tennis as the 'perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity'. It's an old quote and I wonder if it's still true. When I watch, from home, a rally played during an earthquake (in Acapulco), a server rattled by the sonic boom of a fighter jet (in Paris) or those handshake-free matches between opponents whose countries are at war, tennis doesn't seem tranquil. But when I'm a fan-flapping spectator, tranquillity – the civilisation of it all – turns out to be what I value and aspire to most. Last summer a friend messaged me to say he had spent a sunny day at a cricket match somewhere in Dublin. This was as much a surprise to him as it was to me. I replied that when I was a child I used to think the old guys who sat watching test cricket for five days were mad. Now I envy them. At Wimbledon, I've found that the best part of the day can be the evening, after the crowd has thinned. I can spread out on shaded seats, drink red wine from recyclable plasticware and absorb a second-round meeting between, say, Petra Kvitová and Jasmine Paolini. The London heat rises up Centre Court, making me sleepier than the wine alone could manage, and my lower back relaxes so much, I realise how rarely it ever does. Tennis days are long. Matches are regularly paused because spectators, overestimating their capacity to withstand heat, require medical assistance. Buying tickets for outdoor tournaments in Italy or France, I study online seat maps closely as I try to work out the aspect of arenas, the quantity of sunshine I covet and the amount of exposure I will be able to take before I reach, in tennis parlance, break point. Heat, even in climates where it is expected, can feel ominous. Everyone wants to see exceptional play, or what commentators call 'tennis from another planet'. No one wants to see tennis from a burning planet. Back at sustainability-championing Wimbledon, it is still hard to conceive of the wrath of heavens as something dry, cloudless and stealthily deadening, even as climate scientists forecast more extreme and prolonged heatwaves for our future summers. But sooner or later, players, spectators and courts alike will be baked in ways that would never have been predicted when the first Championships was held in 1877. Sport, the epitome of our pursuit of excellence and a release valve for so many, must adapt fast to this global heating, parching, melting, and that means being prepared to change the rules. 'It gets late early,' is an old saying of baseball catcher Yogi Berra , or 'Yogi-ism', sometimes cited during best-of-three-set tennis matches that whizz by too quickly for the losing player to mount a comeback. In the climate emergency it gets late early, too. Some unforced errors, as players know, cost you the match.
