Picture the scene. It was 12 months ago and the sun was shimmering at Wimbledon (cue romantic background music). A young American by the name of Alan Hobbs from Los Angeles got chatting with an English rose named Zoe from Fleet in Hampshire (add swelling violins). A day to cherish and remember followed.

A seat on Centre Court may be one of the most difficult tickets to acquire in British sport, but there is a corner of the All England Club which is even more exclusive.

For a few tantalising moments yesterday, it was feasible to envisage the Wimb-ledon hat-trick quest of Pete Sampras becoming entangled in the complicated machinery of a haphazard service action that makes Karsten Braasch a figure of fun on the men's Tour. Against a journeyman performer ranked 119 places below him, it should have been a stroll on the grass for the defending champion. Instead, Sampras called it "a pain in the arse".

The life of Fred Perry was celebrated on a day of glorious sunshine, redolent of strawberries and cream, Pimm's, virginia creeper and freshly mown lawns. A final service at St Paul's Cathedral would have appealed to the great man's ego, and also to his keen sense of humour, given the years he spent bucking the tennis establishment at the height of his fame in the 1930s.

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After spending some 20 minutes finding various permutations to express his disappointment, Pete Sampras decided that "it was just a really shitty day''. One of too many of late.

Yes, apparently, time is all we require to lift the great British tennis racket out of the mire of ignominious defeat, not to mention losing to Slovakia.

"All England mourns a passing hero." Guardian "The Errol Flynn of the Centre Court." Today "Perry's modest background, and a disinclination to touch his forelock, were not compatible with the snobbishness of the Lawn Tennis Association in an age when social demarcations were still in force."

Bud Collins remembers a rare champion who ruled the tennis world

Frederick John Perry, tennis player, businessman: born Stockport 18 May 1909; married 1935 Helen Vinson (marriage dissolved), 1941 Sandra Breaux (marriage dissolved), 1945 Lorraine Walsh (marriage dissolved), 1952 Barbara Reis (one daughter, one a doptedson); died Melbourne, Australia 2 February 1995.

Fred Perry, the last British tennis player to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon, died in a Melbourne hospital yesterday, writes Mark Burton. Perry, who was 85, suffered broken ribs in a fall in his hotel bathroom on Sunday and his condition deteriorated quickly.

`He was a superlative ambassador for sport throughout the world. He was a great character, big-hearted, and a true champion'

JEREMY BATES did not wiggle a la Chris Wilkinson when he won yesterday, he just waved at the crowd and then wrapped his arms metaphorically around the scene of his triumph. Court 14 is his favourite part of Wimbledon. His stage, if a British tennis player can safely be accused of bestriding anywhere.

IT WAS a pleasant day for royalty. The Duke and Duchess of Kent were presented with replicas of the singles trophies, the first British citizens to possess them since Fred Perry (1936) and Virginia Wade (1977).