You just have to glance at the shop front to see that Pet Pavilion, a family-owned boutique and grooming salon for dogs and cats in Wimbledon Village, knows all about the fun of chasing down balls.
“Let your racquet do the talking,” spells out lettering on a scoreboard inside the window, positioned next to a white-painted brick wall emblazoned with Banksy-inspired graffiti art and “Barksy”, a large cartoon dog in a hoodie standing amid a sea of tennis balls with a spray can.
Welcome to the annual Wimbledon Village Tennis Windows competition: surely the most niche and uplifting of subcultures inspired by Grand Slam tennis?
Like the 54 other registered entrants to the 2021 event, top-seeded Pet Pavilion – twice winners and twice runners-up since 2015 – go to tremendous efforts to celebrate the spirit of The Championships.
“The process starts after Christmas when my wife Jenny, son Alex and I have a brainstorming session to come up with a concept,” says managing director Andrew Saville-Edells. “We develop the idea, rough out the design and research materials to bring it to life by June.”
Brainstorming is a serious business. In 2016, the Pet Pavilion contingent made an appointment to visit Wimbledon Librarian Robert McNicol to study amusing cartoons from the archive; the following year, their window showcased a Hall of Fame with detailed portraits of players styled as dogs or cats – Pet Sampras, Steffi Grrrrf, Bjorn Bark, Novak Dogovic and so on.
Our main photo shows those perennial litter-picking favourites, the Wombles, in the window of Gigi's Organic. Their creator, Elisabeth Beresford, lived in nearby Earlsfied.
This year Peacock & Co solicitors have introduced Hollywood glamour with a throwback window that pays homage to the tennis sequence in Mannequin. In the 1987 movie, Kim Cattrall plays a beautiful Egyptian trapped in the body of a 1980s department store mannequin, together with Brat Pack actor Andrew McCarthy as a window-dresser.
In one scene, faithfully replicated by the law firm, Cattrall sits on an umpire’s chair modelling an outfit topped by a floppy brimmed red hat. An image, posted on Twitter as #ItsaWimbledonthing, prompted a response from The Sex and the City actress herself.
With surreal, gravity-defying arrays of balls and rackets, decorative ingenuity runs amok. Rules for entry are simple, explains Kimberley Salmassian, founder and organiser of the event.
“The windows must have a tennis theme – purple and green colours, strawberries and cream, all-white clothing etc. Businesses are provided with rackets from Babolat and balls from Slazenger, though it’s not compulsory to use them.”
The windows are judged by a panel of 10 assessors on the strength of their tennis concept, the creativity of its execution and on how the play on the tennis theme reflects each shop or restaurant’s speciality.
The staff at Nordic Balance health clinic have dressed an anatomical skeleton in tennis whites, visor and sweat bands, posed at full stretch.
Shoe designer Joseph Azagury has created the “Naomi” as his window eye candy, a handmade raffia and leather slingback on a 10cm heel with tennis ball detail. Previous years’ sell-out designs included Venus, Glitter Ball, Strawberry Kiss and Envy.
No wonder Thai Tho, the defending champions, are feeling under pressure in their 2021 campaign to win the top prize of two Centre Court tickets.
Adrian Mills, the Novak Djokovic of this year’s competition, takes confidence in the level of play and consistency that has brought the restaurant he co-owns three victories and two runner-up finishes in the last five events, but agrees the opposition is “extremely strong”.
“After the most bizarre year of our life, I was stuck for ideas,” confesses Mills, who is also chairman of the Wimbledon Village Business Association. “I wanted to have a row of men’s ties across the window with a large gap for the words ‘Tie Break’, but that was vetoed by Nicky, my wife.
"Watching Nadal playing at Roland-Garros on TV a few weeks ago, I realised it is his little pre-serve rituals that make him feel good and focused, and when he started bouncing the ball, I shouted, ‘Nicky, I’ve got our theme – Bouncing Back!’”
Bobby the Ball is now resplendent in Thai Tho’s window with a face mask adorned with the message “Bouncing Back in 2021” and a note to thank the local community who supported the business through 8,000-plus takeaway orders during lockdown. Retail therapy at its best.
