Wimbledon. It might only be a fortnight but it seems a lot longer.

Confession time. I'm not a tennis fan and Wimbledon Fortnight is not an event that features at all on my social calendar. It passes me by as a minor inconvenience. But, that doesn't stop me having an opinion on why Wimbledon isn't for me. Here's what I don't like about it.

The crowd 
Wimbledon is often the only sporting event that most of them ever attend, unless you include Celebrity Come Dancing. 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 impales themselves 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. They are there for the event and not the sport. I bet, in another life, some would have joined the tricoteuse and laughed as they knitted.

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 professional tennis players: they spend their time wandering the globe in a hermetic bubble, moving from one identical event to the next, racking up the money and seemingly 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 footballers in the self-absorbed egomaniac stakes.

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. 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.)

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 days for the chance sit on tiny wooden seats with their knees pressed against the person in front, or to watch something on a jumbo screen that's taking place for real 30 foot away. They buy strawberries and cream at a slightly higher price-per-kilo than thallium. Heaven forbid, they even clap and sing along to Cliff Richard during rain breaks.

The tabloids 
For the tabloids, the tournament is no more than an extended opportunity for seedy journos to pass judgement on the looks of young women. True to form, last year one tabloid's 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 fantasize over the bum-scratching Athena tennis player poster.)

The BBC coverage
Convinced, as ever, that they know what the country wants in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the BBC insist of giving Wimbledon blanket coverage. They've got this wrong. 

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 following 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 and an inability to speak in polysyllables.

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 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.

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.

The moaning about the tennis 
I find it odd that, despite their professed love of the game, nobody's ever happy with the style of tennis played: 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.

The on-court interviews
Anyone else feel like these on-court interviews after a match are really forced and awkward? Why, oh, why are players forced to endure such embarrassment? It's a contractual obligation, that's why, and they get paid for it. But, be still my beating heart, maybe Djokovic is starting a new trend with his recent outburst (that's a bit strong, actually) against a booing crowd.