MovieChat Forums > Wimbledon (2004) Discussion > People who watch partly for the tennis a...

People who watch partly for the tennis and follow the sport in real life

posted 14 years ago by oldbondsie
4 replies | jump to latest

I just heard a line that completely ruins the tennis aspect of the movie...

During Peter Colt's match against a player labeled only as "Dragomir" in his second round match he sits down after Dragomir breaks him for 5-4 in the fourth. He says something like "Second round that's not bad... And you did win the French Open..." STOP! The entire prestige around the tennis aspect of the movie (Which admittedly takes a backseat to the romance plot) is that Colt is just another British player who could have been great but never was. He seems depressed about retiring because he never did anything he felt was great. And John McEnroe at the end of the movie after SPOILERS Peter wins the championship says "The Brits finally have a champion."

But... Peter says that he won the French Open. The French Open is a major and while it might not means as much to the Brits as Wimbledon, it is still one of the four majors and would still warrant him being considered a great player. No Briton has won a grand slam for (Not taking the time to actually check) I think almost 80 years now. Since Fred Perry in either the 20's or 30's. For Colt to win the French Open (a.k.a. Roland Garros) would immediately cement him as the greatest British tennis player of the past seven decades and no matter what happened he would be on Center Court anytime he played at Wimbledon for the rest of his career. No one would ever shun him for "Jake Hammond" during his press conference, etc. I knew that the actual tennis in the movie sucked and was completely fake, but clearly even the writing was horrible. "And you did win the French Open..." that line is horrendous. It ruins the entire Cinderella Story part of the movie. No British tennis player would ever look at winning the French Open as just a little side note to make them feel good about their career. That would BE their career and they would be set for life, get free drinks, etc. anywhere in Britain for it.

Obviously I'm probably focusing way too much on the part of the movie that was supposed to be taking a backseat to the romantic plot, but still, the movie is, after all, entitled "Wimbledon." I don't know, I just thought that was a really stupid line that I just noticed like the fourth time watching this movie.

[–] Ladybug84 14 years ago

The line is actually: "he did win the French Open, at least you got three games off him"... meaning that Dragomir was the French Open Champion and that it wasn't so bad losing to him.

And for the line "The Brits finally have a champion" its in remark to what you touched on- the fact that the British have failed to win their home title for 80 years... they came close with Henman but still haven't had one. With Colt's win- they finally have a champion.

[–] johnston.scot 14 years ago

> I just thought that was a really stupid line that I just noticed like the
> fourth time watching this movie.

Maybe you heard what he actually said the first three times?

[–] brandon_j_snider 12 years ago

It would also not be called "The French Open" by insiders like the tennis press and pro players. It would be called Roland Garros.

[–] fannyf 12 years ago

I don´t remember the line, but is dumb to think of a Grand Slam champion not having too much attention in retirement, mostly when right now on tour only Roger, rafa, novak, DelPo, Heweet,Gaudio and Roddick have at least one Grand Slam, I suppose the line of the second post is the correct. As for the fact that no Britain has won Wimbledon since the 20´s, probably this trend will last at least until next year because Murray has the most difficult draw in this Wimbledon (wich starts tomorrow :))