Wimbledon Journal

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A medieval cathedral, the grounds of the all-England club, a dissident priest, and Roger Federer–how does it all relate?

A lot of writers have published journals, columns, blogs, etc, about Wimbledon and English tennis, but I feel reasonably confident this is the first one with a dateline that starts in Boston.

Boston Massachusetts? Nope, the original Boston. Boston, Lincolnshire, England. It’s an old medieval market town in the gorgeous rural farm country 100 or so miles north of London. And yes, our Boston here in the states is named after it.

And why was I there in Old Boston and how could that possibly relate to Wimbledon? Well, strangely, Old Boston is where two of my fondest interests converged.

This year I was invited to speak at a British tennis coaches’ conference before Wimbledon. I was also invited to attend a second high performance coaches’ conference at the new British National Tennis Center. Finally, I was invited to see the matches the first three days at Wimbledon courtesy of my good friend, Nicola Hall–English player, coach, and leader in English complementary medicine (reflexology, if you are knowledgeable enough to know what that is.)

And Nicola was also kind…