What happened to the Wimbledon tradition? They were present not too long ago.?

Question

I noticed that the following were missing after watching the Wimbledon final yesterday:

(1) Players were required to acknowledge the Royal family before and after their matches. Men were required to bow and women had to bend their knees.

(2) The electronic scorecard. One of the reasons why I loved Wimbledon was the giant scorecard with lights glowing.

(3) Men were addressed as Mister and women were addressed as Miss/Missus while saying Advantage _____, Game _____, etc.

What do you people think? Why the change?

Answer 1

as i can remember, they say: advantage MISS venus williams... but i don't know the others (i don't remember if they say advantes MR nadal or not)

Answer 2

Things change ... Wimbledon decided to change their ways to try to keep up with modern times, although why I don't know, nothing wrong with tradition, imo.

Answer 3

My guess is that Wimbledon organizers finally realized that Wimbledon is no longer regarded as THE grand slam, but is rather viewed as 1 of the 4.  So they are trying to become more uniform now.

As for the the Royal Family bow, this is the info on the Wimbledon site: "In 2003, in accordance with the wishes of HRH The Duke of Kent, the Club’s President, it was agreed that the time was right to discontinue the tradition of players bowing/curtseying to members of the Royal family on entering or leaving the Centre Court. The only exceptions will be for HM The Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales."

Answer 4

The requirement that players acknowledge the royal family via bow or curtsy was abolished last year - I suppose because of the growing sentiment in Britain itself supporting discontinuation of the monarchy or at least the attitude that it is becoming less and less relevant.  Replacement of the old electronic scoreboard is part of the "improvements" planned for center court which include the addition of a retractable roof which will be ready in time for next year's tournament.  As for addressing the players with the appropriate title, I didn't notice it was missing.  It seems that in the matches that I watched, they were addressed appropriately.  I missed a lot of matches due to being at work, but I saw most of the men's and women's finals.  Are you certain about that?

Answer 5

Today is today and yesterday was yesterday!!!

Times change...habits change...get over it already!