When the players emerged, the professionals Lenya and Dietrich went about their preparations with teutonic efficiency. Mansfield and Hodgkins appeared bewildered and had, in any case, very little to prepare. Each had one racquet and each hung a cardigan over the back of a chair before wandering onto the court. Dietrich was on song early and Lenya can hold her own in any company. Mansfield sat slumped during the breaks, coughing. It didn’t look good.
The Europeans raced through the first set and it was 3–3 in the second before there was any indication this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. With Hodgkins playing superbly at the net, the Kiwis broke Dietrich and hung on. Dietrich left the court and changed her dress for the next set, returning in a figure-hugging wet-look creation which did a great deal for internet service providers.
The third set was agonising and exhilarating. Mansfield grew weaker and weaker but was the key player. Enchanted by her wounded brilliance, the French crowd embraced her, encouraged her, and lifted her. At 2–2 she hit three of the best returns in the match and the antipodeans went a break up. At 4–2 she netted two regulation overheads and lost her own serve. At 5–4, by which time she could hardly move, Mansfield came up with a forehand drive that ripped past Lenya like a bullet, then a perfectly judged drop shot. The crowd was ecstatic. People were standing, applauding wildly, with tears streaming down their faces. This was heroic stuff.
It was now match point.
Dietrich got the serve back but without much on it, Hodgkins across court. Lenya the drive. Mansfield looked out of position but she got to the ball and hit a cross-court forehand which was a winner from the moment it left the racquet. The crowd went bananas. Hodgkins hoisted Mansfield in the air. At the press call, though, Hodgkins was alone. ‘Katherine isn’t well,’ she said.
‘Where is she?’ asked Mailer.
‘She is in hospital,’ said Hodgkins.
‘Will she be OK?’
‘We don’t know. Whatever happens, today Katherine was perfect. She had a great time here. She got to see Chekhov. She is very happy.’
Magritte and Dali, back on Centre Court for the men’s doubles final, entertained from the outset. Noticing the large video display which had been installed at the northern end for spectators without tickets, Dali spent the first set getting to the ball early, grinning at the cameras, saying, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen: the Great Dali!’, before playing his shot. The quieter Magritte had an idea of his own. He kept the ball between his head and the camera at all times so that the image projected around the world was of a neatly dressed man, behaving perfectly normally, with a tennis ball instead of a face.
In the second set, the Great Dali was generating such topspin that the ball would loop high away over the backline before it drifted back to drop just inside the line. Duchamp got to grips with this late in the set but by then the damage was done. Dali and Magritte were in command and the crowd had come to accept that if something looked possible, it was possible.
In the third set Beckett became obsessed with using a different ball each time he served. He put one in the left-hand pocket of his shorts and another in the right-hand pocket of his shorts. He put one down his left sock and one down his right sock. He put one up his left sleeve and another up his right sleeve. He held two in his right hand and two in his left hand. Beckett served using one of the balls in his left hand. He then moved the remaining ball into the ‘ready’ position, shifted the uppermost ball from his right hand into his left hand, moved the ball from up his left shirt sleeve into his right hand, the ball from his right shirt sleeve into his left shirt sleeve and the ball from his right sock up into his right shirt sleeve. He then transferred the ball from his left sock into his right sock and shifted the one from his right shorts pockets into his left sock and put the one from his left shorts pocket into his right shorts pocket. Then, calling for an extra ball, he sequestered it accordingly, in the left shorts pocket vacated by this last action. He served again, using the next ball, replacing it with the ball below it and shifting one of the balls in his right hand into his left hand. He then…
Duchamp stepped in. ‘See that stand the umpire’s sitting in?’
‘I do,’ said Beckett.
‘It’s a bride descending a staircase as viewed through a small hole in a fence.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Beckett.
‘Serve low to Dali’s forehand and don’t follow it in.’
Beckett followed the instructions. As the serve passed Duchamp, he moved to cover the return down the line. Dali lifted the ball across court and Beckett drove it back between them. This was bread-and-butter for Beckett. One break won them the set. They repeated the pattern in the next and the match went to a fifth. There was no longer any display from Dali and Magritte. No Great Dali, no man with a ball for a face.
Duchamp and Beckett were now in a familiar position. One set remaining, all other complications out of the way, someone would move, someone would counter, another move, another counter, the games running out all the time. And so it was. Games went with service until 8–8, Dali serving. He hit a superb cross-court drive at 30-all. Duchamp got to it and threw it high to the back court. Magritte smashed, Beckett got it back, Dali went for the winner but hit it long. 30–40.
