As the action on Centre Court yesterday at Wimbledon spilled over into the hours of late evening, Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knocked the tennis ball vigorously back and forth in a topsy-turvy bout which never seemed settled until late in the fifth set.
Murray eventually prevailed, but only after saving break points at the start of the fifth which – had they not been forsaken by Tsonga – could have resulted in a whole other outcome. And it was a day when one epic followed another on Centre Court, for earlier Roger Federer had somehow managed to come back from two sets down to squeak his way past the big-serving Croatian Marin Čilić.
Those in attendance were surely almost as exhausted as the players by the time both matches were said and done, but even for some home viewers the day’s action proved all too much. And with darkness approaching, one woman littered the television regulator Ofcom with a litany of complaints.
The crux of the matter was a messy burrito, and the BBC’s coverage of the Murray/Tsonga match. Anne Radley, a 32-year-old singleton from Stockport, had been enjoying the tennis when she made a brief foray into the kitchen to forage her cupboards and rustle up some food. She came back with a burrito, full of some unascertained minced meat, baked beans, jalapeño peppers, and leftover brown rice, all positively dripping with tomato ketchup and sour cream.
Her plates still in the dishwasher, Radley bore the burrito in both hands, with a plastic portion of Le Froglet rosé wine tucked under her chin, procured earlier in the evening from Marks & Spencer. But after slumping into her seat and taking her first bite, suddenly the BBC One broadcaster announced that the tennis match would henceforth be showing on a different channel.
It was time for the Six O’Clock News, a show Radley never watches. But with her hands full of burrito she could scarcely switch the remote. After waiting frustratedly for more than half an hour, eating slowly so as not to suffer from bloating, she made a grasp for the controller only to look down and find bean juice dripping down her forearm, sour cream glooping and pearling about her wrist, and sticky fingers.
She duly made her way back into the kitchen and cleaned herself up. Murray, who had earlier taken a two-sets-to-love lead, was now a set worse off and down a break of serve in the fourth. Radley resigned herself to watching the remainder of the match on BBC Two, but just as she licked her Cornetto on came The One Show!
