2022 Wimbledon Championships: Q&A with Eleanor Crooks, Tennis Correspondent at PA Media

Wimbledon 2022 will be one of the big sports stories this year with Centre Court celebrating its centenary and specially commissioned coins to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee which we will be used at the Finals Weekend. Ahead of the Championships, Eleanor Crooks, PA’s Tennis Correspondent, tell us more about what our coverage will entail, her most memorable Centre Court clashes and the tennis stars she’ll be keeping an eye on.

1. You joined PA as trainee in 2004, can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

I’ve been the main reporter covering tennis since 2010. I grew up playing and watching tennis but I’m an all-round sports fan. I also cover North West football and have been very fortunate to be part of the PA team at the last three Olympics. I balance my reporting duties with being mum to a seven-year-old.

2. What will our coverage entail for this year’s 135th Championships?

Wimbledon is always the main focus of the tennis year for us and where we produce the most content. We focus most intently on the British players and this year there’ll obviously be a huge spotlight on Emma Raducanu and everything she does.

Andy Murray has been slightly overshadowed but remains a huge draw, while there’ll also be interest in the likes of Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans. We also report in depth on the big international names like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Naomi Osaka as well as rounding up all the other action and picking out some of the quirkier stories that customers are increasingly looking for.

3. What’s a typical day like for you at Wimbledon?

I normally try to arrive at the club around an hour before the start of play having spent the journey looking through the papers online and making sure we haven’t missed anything.

We hope to have a team of four reporters this year, as well as an editor, and we’ll divide the key matches between us, normally covering two or three matches each a day, which means going out to the courts to watch and then attending the post-match press conference.

The first few days are always the busiest when there are a lot of British players so it can mean trying to follow two or three matches at once. We have two offices at the All England Club where we can watch matches on TV and obtain all the stats. At the end of each day, we discuss the following day’s schedule and plan our coverage. Being at Wimbledon for 12 hours plus a day is far from unusual so it’s a tiring fortnight!

4. This year will mark the centenary of Centre Court – What’s your most memorable Centre Court clash?

I’m incredibly lucky to have covered Wimbledon during such an exciting era of tennis and I’ve seen some amazing matches. The 2019 final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, when Djokovic saved two match points and it went to a deciding tie-break, was one of the most dramatic and I’ll never forget the stress of having to dash back to the media centre when my laptop battery died during the fifth set! But the most memorable was definitely Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon triumph in 2013 when he beat Djokovic. The tension during the final game was something I’m not sure I’ll ever experience again.

5. Who do you think could be in the running to become this year’s Wimbledon champions 2022 in the Men’s and Women’s competitions?

It definitely feels like times are finally changing in men’s tennis. Djokovic will be the favourite again but there are a lot of exciting young players, and it’ll be particularly interesting to see how 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz fares after his great results on hard courts and clay. Iga Swiatek has shown herself to be a worthy world number one on the women’s side following Ashleigh Barty’s retirement, while I’m excited to see how Raducanu copes with the expectation and attention on what is clearly a good surface for her.

6. How do you think the fans add to the excitement of the tournament?

Wimbledon was the first sporting event I attended last year with a good number of fans following the lifting of Covid restrictions and it really made me appreciate how having people supporting from the stands elevates everything. Wimbledon has a reputation for being quiet compared to somewhere like the US Open but 17,000 people holding their breath during a crucial point is really quite something. The buzz you feel walking around the grounds is like nowhere else.

7. After Wimbledon, where to next?

A holiday! The end of the grass-court season normally means a very welcome break and a chance to catch your breath but the US Open soon rolls around and I’ll be heading to New York in late August to see Emma Raducanu defend her title.

As fans get ready to cheer on their favourite player at Wimbledon, ace your coverage and captivate audiences on your platform with the much-watched tennis tournament here.