Wimbledon is coming. The air crackles with excitement. The biggest and greatest Grand Slam of the year (unless, of course, you happen to be Australian, French or American) is upon us. After two years of waiting, Wimbledon is here.

And what a two years it has been. The tennis world was put in mothballs for five months when the pandemic first struck but then, in August last year, it was back. It was in a bio-secure bubble, but it was back. There were forehands and backhands and people in shorts running around like whippets. We, the inky-fingered press pack, had something to write about. But how?

The players were allowed to travel from tournament to tournament but we were not. Like everyone the world over, we had to get used to the dreaded WFH (working from home) and all the technology that went with it. And, for the most part, we journos are old school (or, possibly, just old). This was not easy.

From the five-month famine, we suddenly had a feast: three Grand Slam events in the space of five months. Two Roland-Garroses (if that is, indeed, the plural) in the space of eight months. It was wall-to-wall tennis – and in every time zone. All to be covered from home and our own personal time zones.

The tennis itself was easy – it was on the telly. Watching matches was not the problem; it was what happened afterwards that lurched from hilarious to heart-stopping depending on your internet connection and grasp of the mechanics of Zoom, Teams or whatever platform was in use.

Press conferences – or pressers – are odd affairs at best. A room full of people, most of whom are considerably older than the player and are all edgily on deadline, and the player who is either exhausted and elated having won or exhausted and devastated having lost. First question please…

That first question tends to be the same whatever the result of the match: something along the lines of “how do you feel it went?” (said with a happy face if the player has won and a sad face if they haven’t). It is a bit like meeting someone and opening the conversation with: “how are you?” That gets the ball rolling and from there we move on to other topics of the day.

But with the virtual pressers, that established flow is disrupted. Everyone sits staring at their laptops with their virtual hands up, waiting for something to happen. When your name is called, you are on stage – and that leads to some odd opening questions.

Milos Raonic, playing his first competitive match in six months, had just dispatched Sam Querrey in straight sets at the Cincinnati Masters 1000. He had cause to feel pleased with himself (he went on to reach the final that week). But the first question he faced was “When did you last get a haircut?”. He took it well (and, to be fair, he did have big hair) but it was still a challenging start.

Diego Schwartzman was in the same boat after his first match. Not a word about his straight sets win over Casper Ruud but, rather, “I’m fascinated by your tie-dye t-shirt…” Again, he took it very well, all things considered but it is hard to know where to go after an opening like that.

Then there was the sudden realisation that if we could see the player then they could see us. After six months of lockdown and no access to a hairdresser or barber, this was not good. Some of my colleagues had channelled their inner hippy while cooped up at home; others now resembled a grizzly bear waking up from hibernation. I just looked like a floor mop that had been plugged into the national grid. It wasn’t pretty.

As for the business of presser etiquette, that sometimes went out of the window. When everyone is sitting together in the interview room, the place is quiet. No one is eating. No one is making phone calls. No one is trying to stop the cat from standing on the laptop keyboard. And we are all in the same time zone.

When a player bounds off court at 4pm on a sunny Melbourne afternoon, those of us in the UK are bleary eyed and in dire need of sleep at 5am. We chug down coffee, we try not to wake the rest of the household – or the neighbours – by speaking too loudly. And we realise that no matter what we do or how many padlocks we put on the door, we cannot keep the cat out of the study. Trying to look business-like when you haven’t slept, you still have 800 words to write and the cat is dismembering what looks like a mouse (but you can’t be sure) under the desk is no way to make a living.

 Not that any of it matters anymore. Wimbledon is here: real, live tennis with real, live spectators. Due to COVID protocols, the pressers will still be virtual, mind you, so don’t judge the media too harshly if the line of questioning sounds a little disjointed, but other than that, we are back in business. Roll on Monday.