New York’s tabloids are famously tough, but for intrigue, for inventiveness, even bluntness, they have nothing on the British. And the reminders arrive every year at this time when Wimbledon begins. In London they’ve already broken out a tried-and-true gag: the Grunt-O-Meter, to measure the yelps of Maria Sharapova — or ‘‘SHRIEK-APOVA’’, as she was dubbed even before she began her title defence. The most aggressive tabloid, The Sun, breathlessly reported that the 18-year-old Russian’s grunts are ‘‘roughly the same volume as a small aircraft landing.’’The Brits aren’t merely blunt. They’re imaginative, too. Everyone who goes to Wimbledon hears in advance about the ferreting coverage by the Fleet Street Rotties — or Rottweilers, as reporters from tabloids such as The Sun, Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail long ago nicknamed themselves. Yet I still watched in amazement my first year there when German star Michael Stich, then a top-three player, was jauntily asked by one reporter: ‘‘Just what do you say when people ask, ‘Who in the hell is Michael Stich?’’’ That was 1993, the same year a peroxide blond named Andre Agassi, still long-haired and a bit flabby, was cross-examined about everything from his ‘‘burger gut’’ to his rumored romance with Barbra Striesand to — I’m not making this up — his sudden absence of chest hair. ‘‘Can you tell us why and how you had your body hair removed?’’ one Rottie asked. ‘‘Because it makes me a little more aerodynamic,’’ Agassi shot back. Billie Jean King tells a story of playing Linda Siegel at Wimbledon in 1979 and watching in shock as her opponent’s low-cut dress didn’t quite contain her during one lunge for a ball. Though the crowd sat frozen, the photographers’ cameras clicked and clicked. One next-day tabloid headline read: ‘‘THANKS FOR THE MAMMARY.’’ When John McEnroe was about to marry actress Tatum O’Neal, the story was more about the taming of tennis’s bad boy: ‘‘I’LL BE A HOUSE HUSBAND LIKE LENNON, SAYS MAC.’’ When Monica Seles was rumored to be dating Donald Trump and skipped Wimbledon in 1990, a writer for The Sun caused a furore by speculating ‘‘IS SELES A WIMBLEMUM?’’ (which is not to be confused with the annual ‘‘Wimble-bum’’ contests, in which tabloid photographers snap photos of women’s rears when their skirts kick up). By now you’ve probably noticed that a lot of the tabloids’ storylines center around the same sophomoric themes: Sex, body parts, potty humor, life’s embarrassing moments, and more sex. Sort of like every Ben Stiller movie. But it’s an attention-grabbing combination. Tim Adams, one of the so-called ‘‘respectable’’ British writers, has suggested there’s a good reason why the tabloids have such a fascination with Wimbledon: Wimbledon is England’s first and longest-running reality TV show. The tournament is annually full of the same wannabes and screwups, heroes and losers, drama and controversy you see in everyday life. And each episode of ‘‘The Apprentice’’ or ‘‘Survivor.’’ When British hope Greg Rusedski lost at Wimbledon in 2000 to America’s Vince Spadea, the owner of a record 21-match losing streak, the tabloid headlines were unsparing: ‘‘RUSEDSKI FALLS TO WORLD’S BIGGEST LOSER!’’ Tim Henman, England’s perennial near-miss contender, has worn out his welcome among some Brits, too. Even the staid old Times of London ran a story titled: ‘‘WHY ON EARTH DID WE EVER THINK HE COULD DO IT?’’ (LA Times-Washington Post)
