Ladies and gentlemen, time please. Time for the world's greatest tennis tournament to begin, a tournament so great that it requires no qualifier: when you say Wimbledon (or more correctly, Wmbldn), the world knows what you mean.

You mean history, heritage, tradition, rules, green grass, white clothes, hats, rain, strawberries, cream, streakers, a sense of awe and an indescribable hush as the proceedings begin.

Yes, there is some of that in cricket too. But cricket has a sort of comfiness in its traditions. The great cricket writer, Neville Cardus, compared matches he watched to classical symphonies he listened to; the other great cricket writer (among other things), CLR James, saw politics and life.

But the enduring cricket memory is from Oliver Goldsmith - with the village green, the oak tree, the village blacksmith rolling up his shirtsleeves and getting ready to hear the thwack of the willow as the bat hits the leather ball he has just bowled. It's the English countryside which provides the romance.

Tennis is about the city, it's about curtsying to the Royal Box before you start, and even though players don't do that any more, you see a vestige of it as they walk on to Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Tennis players do not roll up their shirtsleeves. It's about being the sport of kings. Henry VIII may have been a bit rambunctious and badly behaved and so were some of the Louis of France. But this was their game.

Of course, once those gladiators get on to the court, you might as well be in a Roman arena because the fight is to the death. You lose one match and you're packing your bags. The game must go on, it's just another loss, there'll be other tournaments. Sure they will. But they won't be Wimbledon.

One must then raise a glass to the missing defending champion first. Rafael Nadal worked very hard to win his one Wimbledon title so far. He had to - it is the Holy Grail. But his knees did not last the course - or the courts - of this part of the season.

That leaves the man he defeated as the tallest in the field. But Roger Federer already has five Wimbledon titles. He does not need the blessings or the withdrawal or indeed even the exaggerated fear of the presence of Nadal to either win another or even prove himself to the world here. He has done that. Now he's looking for a place in history - the maximum number of Grand Slam titles won by any man.

His main rival: Andy Murray, looking for the first British title since Fred Perry won in 1936. But Andy Roddick, Juan Martin del Potro and of course Novak Djokovic might have a say there too. The challengers are ready.

As Federer heads the pick of the men, no Grand Slam list for the women (or ladies, rather) can ever leave out the Williams sisters. They are old hands at victory here and their greatest rivalry is with each other.

But then, there's a resurgent Maria Sharapova with a new bite to her grunt, there's Dinara Safina who thinks her time has come and there's a young contingent which has pulled back its blond hair into a collective ponytail.

The whites are on, the bubbly's chilled and the Centre Court has a roof. That's tradition with a twist. Maybe now we can turn recent tradition on its head and get back to some serve and volley tennis, away from the baseline too. This is grass, ladies and gentlemen, and this is time.

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