IF there's one event that sums up everything bad in sport, it's surely the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

I hate it with a vengeance. Not least because Mrs Mann hogs the TV for two weeks every summer.

But it's also rotten because it's so meaningless. All you see is a bunch of pampered millionaires hitting a silly ball over the fence at a stuck-up sporting venue. It matters not who wins, because they're all equally loaded. Unlike soccer the players do not represent towns or counties, just themselves.

Brits follow Henman and Rusedski because they're English and 'it's good for the country when they win' (repeat that sentence in a banal nasal twang).

But that argument soon recedes when you hear Rusedski's North American accent. And Henman hardly has the charisma to inspire me to patriotically drape the Union Jack around my body.

It's a toff's sport fed to the plebs once a year and we're all supposed to be grateful. Doesn't it make you cringe to hear all the sporting ignoramuses suddenly become experts overnight about tennis when Wimbledon's on?

Then there's strawberries and folk who bunk off work to watch matches.

Compare tennis with Wycombe Wanderers' FA Cup run. Wycombe were genuine heroes, a bunch of honest journeymen who played their hearts out for their sport. None stood to make a fortune but did their town proud as they knocked out bigger clubs.

Henman and Rusedski will end up a lot wealthier than Wycombe's players, even if neither of them ever win Wimbledon (sorry folks, but Henman hasn't a hope).

Compare the tennis players with Steve Redgrave, who spent most of his career slogging his guts out for little reward. In fact, I recall racing driver Damon Hill once pipped Steve to the BBC's Sporting Personality of the Year award, even though Redgrave had won gold and Hill had only come second in his championships.

It just goes to show that the British public like pretty losers, especially ones in skimpy tennis shorts, much more than they admire real winners.