TV View: You have to feel for those tennis enthusiasts who, after a week at work, settled down on their couch on Saturday in anticipation of a day's action from Wimbledon, only to see Virginia Wade strutting her stuff against Betty Stove on centre court when they turned on their tellies.

She hadn't, as they might first have wondered, made a comeback in her 62nd year, in an attempt to give Britain's Wimbledon challenge a competitive edge; the big R in the top right corner of the screen confirmed that the heavens were, once again, weeping all over southwest London.

Indeed, with the weather a touch inclement for much of the week, the BBC had travelled so far down memory lane it was beginning to look like a one-way street, with Borg, McEnroe, Evert and Navratilova hogging the limelight while Federer, Nadal, Williams and Co sheltered from the rain in the locker-room.

It was, then, a nostalgia-fest, which was fine by McEnroe, who's not altogether enthused by today's game or by many of those who play it.

When the Beeb took us even further back in time, for a feature on Jack Kramer, who won Wimbledon 60 years ago, McEnroe suggested every modern player be made watch it, just to let them know how spoilt they are.

Jimmy Connors, beside him, agreed, which made the pair seem a little like Statler and Waldorf, those grumpy Muppets on the balcony. "The young (wooden-racquet-less) people of today," they came very close to sighing.

But they were right, of course, today's bunch don't know their luck, although the suggestion there are no more characters in the game was somewhat contradicted by Janko Tipsarevic's post-match interview after he had knocked out fifth-seed Fernando Gonzalez.

We've heard a fair clatter of these interviews in our time, but "the Russian guy Dostoyevsky" rarely gets a mention.

"The quote 'beauty will save the world' is from a book called The Idiotwhere the main character believes in the idea that inner beauty will save the world, and because of that idea he dies at the end," said Tipsarevic, explaining how he had beaten Gonzalez. "It means a lot to me in my personal ways, because I have ideas about life because of this book."

When we returned to the studio, Michael Stich and Martina Navratilova were examining their feet, for fear John Inverdale would ask them to analyse Tipsarevic's thoughts. But his expression was as blank as theirs, so they moved on to talk about the weather.

And the weather got a lashing too from McEnroe and Connors, whose double-act was predictably entertaining.

Connors: "I was always a little uptight, a little bit highly strung."

McEnroe: "No!"

It might not be accurate to describe Ted Walsh and Robert Hall as the McEnroe and Connors of RTÉ's horse racing coverage, we've never really detected a sizzle of animosity in their relationship, but they rarely fail to entertain us.

It was Best Dressed Couple Day at the Curragh yesterday, also host to a less significant contest in the racing calendar, The Derby, and Ted (green tie, white shirt, creamy raincoat) and Robert (blue dotty tie, pink shirt, creamy raincoat) should surely have been contenders.

Alas, they appeared not to be considered, which can't have helped Ted's mood. "This is as lousy a day as we've had at the Curragh in a long, long time," he said, as the rain fell in torrents from his umbrella down the back of his neck.

"Yes," gurgled Robert.

While oil skins might have been the more appropriate order of the day, Robert, while chatting to fashion expert Marietta Doran, cheerfully noted that "despite the weather there have been some lovely lassies around".

One of these, Marietta pointed out, was a lady who had spent €550 on her umbrella, a wise investment too, she concluded.

Robert, out of politeness, said nothing. We were just sorry Ted wasn't called upon to give his brutal verdict on this lavishness.

Marietta picked a lady by the name of Veronica out of the crowd, cooing over her panache, while Robert purred approvingly. "She likes to support local fashion," said Marietta, "she went to Beijing to pick up this scarf."

Like ourselves, Robert wasn't sure if (a) this was a jest, or (b) if Beijing was a boutique in Newbridge, so we said nothing, lest we embarrass ourselves.