Does it come as any kind of surprise that the very first thing that the BBC chose to broadcast in color was a tennis match? It might, I suppose; why not a World Cup game or a fox hunt or the Queen’s Christmas Message? It’s a testament to the importance of Wimbledon in its home country that the honors went to the 1967 men’s final, won by John Newcombe. The sight of all that blazing green and gold, as well as the bright white clothes that the players wore, helped convince the All England Club’s committee that the sport could be a commercial exercise, if only they upgraded the quality of the players themselves. In December of that year, Wimbledon announced that the following June it would offer prize money and allow the game’s pros to enter for the first time.
Forty-three years later, where would be if we had to watch Monte Carlo in black and white? What would be the point? The tournament is worth seeing for its total color saturation alone. I don’t know of any other tournament that changes so much with the time of day. There’s the bright, light, airy morning, when the seats are mostly empty. There are the peak hours of 1:00 and 2:00, when the sun is high, the star player makes his entrance, the seats fill, the court turns maximum orange, and there’s a sense of urgency and drama in the packed little arena by the water. By 4:00 or 5:00 the sun is on its way down and the court and all the colors that make it up are at their richest—spring, summer, and fall seem to pass over the course of each day at Monte Carlo. The tournament is more elemental than any other; it’s closer to sun, sky, and sea.
Tennis, of course, is famous as the sport without any color at all. It has long been described as “lily white,” or in the words of a racquet-sports blog on Vanity Fair’s website, as one of the “Games that White People Play.” It’s mind-boggling to think of now, but no amateur tennis player—meaning no player at one of the Slams—wore anything but white until 1968 (that year again), when, fittingly or ironically, Arthur Ashe broke the color barrier by daring to wear a . . . yellow (!) shirt during a match at the U.S. Nationals. By 1972, Ilie Nastase was winning at Forest Hills in a bright solid blue. The world was officially upside down.
While it’s forgotten now, color in tennis was code for professionalism, for the vulgar and energizing American marketplace that took control in ’68 (the grunt is color’s sonic equivalent). The first Open era pro tour, WCT, which also began that year, was a riotous breakout from the all-white jail. The players, dubbed the Handsome Eight—they included Cliff Drysdale, Roger Taylor, Tony Roche, and Newcombe—wore combinations of lemon, rust, fire-engine red and various other outlandish tones, the further from plain white the better. To complete the (failed) revolution, they also used ping-pong scoring and, in their first night, played on a layer of AstroTurf that covered an ice rink. Or almost covered it: More than once, a Handsome scrambled so far behind the baseline that he ended up sliding on ice.
Of course, color hasn’t conquered all of tennis. A last lily-white redoubt remains at Wimbledon, where a “predominantly white” rule, which was instituted in 1963, is still in effect. (At least they switched the color of the balls to yellow in 1986, only 14 years after the rest of the world.) Wimbledon has always taken its fashion seriously. You’re probably familiar with the story of Gorgeous Gussie Moran, who caused a major stir on Centre Court when she “paraded,” as the tabloids of the day put it, out in lace panties. It was so outrageous that one of the tournament’s staid old committeemen was moved to bellow at the panties’ designer, Ted Tinling, “You have brought shame and sin to tennis!” Tinling was expelled from Wimbledon for 20 years. (Talk about mind-boggling to think about; is there any better measure of how much times have changed in the last 50 years than tennis?)
Really, though, in the amateur era, there was no reason to make a rule; white was just what tennis players wore. The idea came from cricket (tennis found its first home in cricket clubs in England and on the East Coast of the U.S.) It was also convenient: White did a good job of hiding the sweat of all those decorous ladies and gentlemen who played the sport. Even in the pro era, it has proven hard to shake. Connors, Edberg, Graf, Sampras, Roddick all stuck with it (or were stuck in it). Maybe that was a good thing. Straying from all white could lead to disaster—think about Andre Agassi circa 1991. While I’m no fan of all-white most of the year, I like it at Wimbledon. You can sense there that the players you see each day really will be part of the historic sweep of tennis.
Call Monte Carlo the anti-Wimbledon; if nothing else, it's a banner week for color. I’ve liked getting up early, peeking out at the gray New York sky, and then taking in the tournament in all of its vividness. We had Roger Federer in collar-less blue yesterday. Today we had Rafael Nadal in Federer-esque yellow, though the green head- and sweatbands were the highlight; it seemed like the right touch for the high sun, high heat, middle of the day in Monte Carlo. More than that, we’ve had all the colors that surround the players. The green at the back and on the sides of the court. The bright beige of the clubhouse above. The two tones of blue created by sea and sky. The pale sunlight in the morning, the smokier light in the late afternoon. The striped umbrellas that shade the players on changeovers. The black sunglasses all across the stands. Even the net cord, last bastion of whiteness, stands out. Then there’s the surface. Its rich reddish-orange, darkening through the day, is the best of both tennis worlds. It’s full of color, but naturally occurring. It’s the furthest thing from lily-white, but as traditional as anything in the game.
Now watch, tomorrow it'll rain.