10 reasons why I hate Wimbledon

1) The crowd Wimbledon is often the only sporting event they ever attend - unless you count Torvill & Dean doing The Maharabat on Ice. As a result, they think they're at a show, and have no idea how to behave. They shriek in the middle of a rally, and burst out laughing when a player lunges for a volley and emasculates himself on the umpire's chair. Reminded by the umpire that they're supposed to be quiet during play, they applaud in a quite-right-too kind of way, as if it was someone else doing all the shrieking. Ask them the name of the current Australian women's singles champion and they wouldn't have a clue. That's because they aren't tennis fans at all - they're Wimbledon fans and that's a different thing entirely.

2) The crowd's bizarre nationalism Spectators often paint their faces with national flags, somehow suggesting the players are there on behalf of a nation. The problem is that these are tennis players: they spend their time wandering the globe in a hermetic bubble, moving from one identical hard-court event to the next, racking up the bucks and speaking American, regardless of their nationality. The last thing they think they're doing is representing their country. Tennis players represent only themselves - they're up there with golfers, formula one drivers and Bond villains in the self-absorbed egomaniac stakes.

3) The entourages For the tennis player, the crowd is useful only when it gives them an advantage during important points. The rest of the time, it might as well not exist. Notice how players turn after every point only to their coterie of chums in their ever-present entourage for approval: this consists, at least, of their trainer, hitting coach, psychotic parent, and partner (or, depending on their sexuality, what the BBC likes to call their "good friend"). They exchange speaking looks and secret hand signals, and mouth the word "focus". (Tennis players are the most focused human beings on the planet. They're so focused it's impossible to take a photograph of them that's blurred.)

4) The masochism The Wimbledon crowd don't care that the players ignore them and their love is unrequited - because in love, as in so many ways, they live to suffer. They sleep outside for nine days for the chance sit on tiny wooden seats with their knees pressed against the lungs of the person in front, or to watch something on a jumbo screen that's taking place for real 30 yards away. They buy strawberries and cream at a slightly higher price-per-kilo than thallium. They even clap along to Cliff Richard during rain breaks.

5) The tabloids For the tabloids, the tournament is no more than an extended opportunity for fat, sweating hacks to pass judgement on the looks of young women. True to form, last year the News of the World website had its array of "Wimbledon Winners and Mingers". Qualification for the 'Winners' category was seemingly based on whether or not the photographer could get a nipple shot - or, even better, one of someone shoving a ball into the pocket in their knickers in such a way that they exposed a buttock. (Presumably tabloid editors still masturbate to the arse-scratching Athena tennis player poster.)

6) The BBC coverage Convinced, as ever, that they know what the country wants in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the BBC prefer to cover the first-round matches of hapless but oh-so-brave British wildcards, while some of the finest players on earth slug it out on the courts around them. This used to be little short of negligence; now they have their fallback: "We're going to stay with this match, but if you want to watch some PROPER tennis, use your red button ..."

7) The BBC's recruitment policy Further good news for useless British tennis players lies with current BBC recruitment policy. If any plucky Brit manages to win a match, there's a good chance they'll land a spot on the commentary team the next year. The BBC being a committed equal opportunities employer, it offers plum commentary contracts to retired sports stars regardless of the fact that they have the screen presence of a roll of lino, an inability to speak in polysyllables and a voice like someone beating a set of bagpipes with a steak tenderiser.

8) The BBC expert summarisers The TV audience gets to listen to former hapless losers magically transformed into experts by the simple device of not playing. They'll happily analyse the serves of players who probably never knew their names during their brief playing careers, and discuss the intense psychological demands of big-match, high-pressure moments with John McEnroe and Boris Becker. And all based on a couple of matches that they'd considered at the time to be nothing more than an extended application for a coaching professional's job on the Costa Brava.

9) The moaning about players In a staid, still mostly middle-class sport where wearing slightly longer shorts or a back-to-front baseball cap imbues you with wild-and-crazy rebel status, and where children take up the sport for the sole aim of retiring as multi-millionaires at 25, they moan about the lack of personalities in the game. Yet all it takes is for one player to swear in a moment of stress, and the BBC complaints department telephone glows so hot you could use it to cut your way into a bank vault.

10) The moaning about the tennis Nobody's ever happy with the style of tennis: if a tournament is won by baseline hitters, it's boring, with never-ending rallies; if it's dominated by those who serve well, the game's being reduced to a serving competition with no rallies or artistry.