Word reaches Cyclops that Sue Barker, at the age of 51, may be nearing the end of her reign as the main presenter of the BBC's Wimbledon coverage. Her contract runs out after next year's Beijing Olympics, which means she will do Wimbledon 2008. But after that... ? Although she has done sterling work during this year's rain-drenched proceedings, she is seen as being a little too far removed from Generation Murray. She gave one of her finest performances during the rain-drenched middle Saturday of this year's tournament when she reminisced with Virginia Wade about Wimbledon 1977. This was the year when Wade beat Betty Stove in the final after Barker lost to the Dutch player in the semis. Barker admitted that she could not bear to watch the final. Instead she went shopping in London, but every other shop had a television set showing the match. The only time Barker picked up the women's singles trophy was years later in the BBC studios. The photograph of her brandishing the salver 'off camera' still hangs on a wall at home.
Max coverage
Max Robertson, the nonagenarian former commentator, has made his annual crossing from his home in Guernsey for the Wimbledon finals. A few weeks short of his ninety-second birthday, Robertson's voice is as firm and distinctive on the phone as it was when his urgent descriptions conveyed the excitement of Wimbledon in the years after the Second World War. In those days Robertson was the sound of summer
Robertson's route in to broadcasting might have been sketched out by Evelyn Waugh. He excused himself from Cambridge University after a term, went looking for gold in Papua New Guinea, became a broadcaster in Australia, commentated for the BBC on the inauguration of Pope Pius XII when he stopped off in Italy on the way home in 1939 and later that year announced the outbreak of war on the BBC's Empire Service.
For strokeplay and sustained excitement, Robertson nominates his favourite final as 1954 when Jaroslav Drobny's weighty hitting wore down the resistance of the quicksilver Ken Rosewall; the most dramatic passage of play he says he described was the 34-point tiebreak that John McEnroe won in the 1980 final before he lost in the fifth set to Bjorn Borg.
Robertson admits he was aggrieved when 'they pushed me out in 1986 when they decided you had to retire at 70'. How much longer could he have gone on for? 'Certainly another six years or so.' He sounds as if he could still be doing it today.
Silence, please
Chris Evert, Wimbledon champion three times between 1974-81, has had a right old go at Serena Williams. Writing in a US magazine, she says: 'I just wish she would stop talking about silencing her critics after each big win. Who's criticising her?' Well, there was this open letter to Serena that appeared in the same publication in May last year, in which there was a passage that read: 'In the short term you [Serena] may be happy with the various things going on in your life, but... whether you want to admit it or not, these distractions are tarnishing your legacy.' And who penned this letter? Yup, you guessed it.
Wedding of the year
Maggie Stewart, a retired nurse from New Malden, Surrey, is excitedly awaiting an invitation to the social event of the year in South-East Asia - the marriage of tennis heartthrob Paradorn Srichaphan to the former Miss Universe Natalie Glebova. Srichaphan, a Wimbledon regular for eight years before injury ruled him out of the 2007 championships, calls Stewart his English mum after she befriended him and gave him board and lodging when he first played in London as a 19-year-old in 1999. He went on to become the first Asian male to reach the world's top 10 and is as recognisable a celebrity in his native Thailand as David Beckham is here. The party in April to mark his engagement to Glebova, a Canadian of Russian descent who was Miss Universe in 2005, was a media scrum of Beckham-esque proportions. But before he went public with the engagement he put in a call to New Malden to tell Stewart. 'I'm still waiting for the invitation to arrive, which is taking place in November,' says Stewart, 'but I've been verbally invited.' And will she go? 'Oh yes.'
So how much did you pay?
The rain delays haven't been all bad news. In the last few days of the tournament, the top matches are usually played entirely on the show courts, where seats cost up to £80. But those canny enough to buy ground passes in the past few days have been able to watch men's singles - seeds included - for the rather more enticing maximum price of £18.