WIMBLEDON '95: Opening day proves a fantasy for the Brits

Andy Martin sees graveyard of champions turn into a maternity ward for new-born home hero across three decks on a loady of cobblers

"What time do you make it?"

"11.40."

"The Brits are still in then."

This was the only seriously cynical remark I heard all day as I waited in the queue to get in. Inside, on the first Monday of Wimbledon, hopes were as high as a moonball, as green as the immaculate grass, as rosy as the over-exposed parts of English anatomies slowly roasting in the sun.

Reality doesn't fully set in until the second week.

On opening day everything is still open-ended. This is fantasy Wimbledon. You dream of a wild card, look down the draw and figure out how you could squeeze through to the fourth round or who knows, even the quarters.

As Radka Bobkova and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy knocked up on court 14, I opened the conversation with a heavily shaded woman next to me: "Who you think is going to win then?"

"On grass - anything can happen. Anyone can win."

The home fans were not even rooting patriotically for their countrymen, but rather for the game itself.

"12.08," said one man in a blue hat. "The first ball of Wimbledon. I love being here for the first ball."

"How do you know they haven't already started over on Court Two?" pointed out the sceptical woman next to him.

"Who's playing anyway?" he asked, reluctant to get drawn into this insoluble conundrum.

On the first Monday there are no no-hopers. Court No 2, infamous "graveyard of champions", was transformed briefly into the maternity ward of a new- born (and possibly short-lived) star when Tim Henman overcame Paul Wekesa, of Kenya, but not before toying with the fluctuating emotions of the crowd. After serving for the first set and blowing it on a double-fault, the stocky guy next to me blurted: "OK, that's it - he's gone! The slide starts here!" The general optimism had a fragile feel about it as if apocalypse was just around the corner.

"It's a massacre!" sobbed my neighbour as Wekesa drew level at 5-5, only to add: "Easy, Tim!" when Henman took the first set on a tie-break.

The first line-call dispute of 1995 took place on court No 10, when Tomas Carbonell, of Spain, having lost the first set, had a volley called out on 30-all in the first game of the second and walked over to the umpire's chair.

"I called it straight away," the umpire assured him.

"It doesn't matter how fast you call it if you are wrong," shot back Carbonell. "That ball was good," Carbonell insisted.

The crowd broke into a ripple of appreciative applause, as if a DJ had just put a familiar old favourite on the turntable and Carbonell suicidally lost the next point, playing a behind-the-back shot in protest.

Some spectators were over- reacting to their first taste of high pressure media exposure.

"Hey Jamie," said one Australian girl on the telephone next to me, "I'm on Centre Court. On the right-hand side. I'm wearing my pink T-shirt. Tell Darren to look out for me on the box!"

Outside the Competitors' Entrance, the autograph hunters were having a lean time.

"Stich said No," complained Colin Bishop, aged 14. "Sanchez Vicario said No twice!" complained his friend Paul Cook, even more bitterly. "We are trying for Sampras, but so far we've only got Wekesa and Wayne Ferreira." They had Centre Court tickets, but they had to share them with 14 fellow pupils of the Rochester Maths School, and were only going to see five minutes of play.

"To think we are paying their wages," reflected Paul. "And they don't even take any notice of us," concluded Colin.

I offered my autograph as some kind of consolation, but they turned it down and offered me theirs instead.

Miss X of Shorrock Security (she insisted on anonymity, she wasn't supposed to talk to anyone), whose job it was to keep back the fans, told me that Goran Ivanisevic was the "heart-throb of the day". But, she added, "only because Agassi isn't here, though. When he's on, no one else can compete. He was only practising yesterday and there were hordes."

Sampras came a close second in popularity, but I witnessed one tragedy when a player (who must also remain anonymous) went by, unmobbed, un-autograph- hunted, virtually unknown.

Miss X commented: "He's not a bad player, but he hasn't got the looks. Don't get me wrong, he's not ugly, it's just no one fancies him."

I would predict that Greg Rusedski will soon be racing up the fanciability charts. He put me in mind of Pat Cash in play and looks.

"He's such a nice-looking boy," observed one straw-hatted lady, who was already calling him Greg.

"Talk about a killer serve," gasped a hunky hairy hombre. Rusedski had some brilliant touches and returns of serve, too. But on the outer courts where spectators drift from match to match, the fan is promiscuous in his affections. One bloke on the top tier turned away from Rusedski beating Simian on court 3 to watch Ferreira playing Vacek on court No 2.

"Hey, you are missing the best match of the day," objected his mate.

"Yeah, but I want to work on my tan - the sun is on this side."