On the lawn

Arthur Fery upon winning his quarterfinal match.

If I ever get rich and am still fit to travel, I want to spend a year trotting the globe to watch professional tennis. At a minimum, I'd see all four major outdoor tournaments: Australia in January, Paris around Memorial Day, London around Fourth of July, and New York for Labor Day. There are a few in between, too, almost-majors: Palm Springs in March, Berlin in May, maybe one of the events in Asia. I'll pay the scalpers for good tickets, stay in nice hotels, see the world. I guess it would take being really, really rich. It better hurry up.

In the meantime, I watch on TV. The majors are all fascinating to me, don't ask me why, but the biggest of them all is the one outside of London, at Wimbledon, which has been going on for the last couple of weeks. It's the proverbial grandaddy. I made a pilgrimage to the place just to see the courts on a rainy December day some years ago. The place is totally haunted. I loved it.

The Centre Court has a grand royal box, and during the games it is occupied by many notable people. The Queen of England was there the other day, and with Fery playing today, you might see her again. Princess Kate was around earlier in the tournament. And you also see tennis royalty, Billie Jean King sitting next to Roger Federer or Martina Navratilova.

Meanwhile, the rest of the grounds are like a British version of the Kentucky Derby, except it lasts two weeks. Lots of well-dressed folks pay big bucks to see and be seen, and occasionally the chair umpire of a match has to remind the crowd to wait until play has paused before popping their champagne corks. (As John Lennon once advised them, "just rattle your jewelry.")

Anyway, today the men are playing the semi-final singles matches, and the scene is three quarters predictable and one quarter unbelievable. Jannik Sinner, the top-seeded carrot-top from northern Italy, faces 7-seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who by some measures is the greatest men's player of all time. No surprise there. Likewise, in the other match we have the German Alexander Zverev, seeded second, who just won the French Open. But the shocker is Zverev's opponent, a wild-card entry named Arthur Fery, 23 years old – representing England! This sensational turn of events has the crowds going wild over there. Fery, who attended Stanford and played three years there, has won five Wimbledon matches so far this year, against the likes of Grigor Dmitrov of Bulgaria and Flavio Cobolli of Italy. But Zverev, coming off a big win and brimming with confidence, is something else entirely.

On the women's side, Wimbledon is utterly unpredictable any more. Nine different women have won the singles trophy in as many years, and there will be a 10th different face this year as well. It's boiled down to two excellent Czech players, Karolina Muchova (seeded 10th) and Linda Noskova (seeded ninth). Muchova's been around the block many more times – she's 29 compared to her opponent's 21 – but neither one has been on the biggest stage at Wimbledon. Indeed, only Muchova has been in a major final anywhere, that being in the French three years ago. Yesterday she beat American Coco Gauff in a dramatic five-set match that ended with a 12-10 score in the match tiebreaker.

Notably missing from the scene is Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish man-child who brings a contagious smile along with his ferocious play. He's nursing a wrist injury and may or may not be fit to compete in New York at the end of the summer. If I ever do make my tennis trip and he's not playing, I'll be disappointed.

But the rest of the cohort of competitors are still a great joy to watch and admire. And there is no greater setting than the one they'll be occupying for a few more days.