This film is a 10/10 turkey. The attempts to give it authenticity are in its favour (cameos from John McEnroe, Ilie Nastase, Pancho Gonzales playing the role of coach), but can't save it from the lame plot, and the laughable sense of unreality about how spectacularly successful Dean Martin Jr suddenly becomes. A sparsely populated and quiet Wimbledon Centre Court at the end only adds to the sense of unreality (anyone who knows anything about Wimbledon knows that Centre Court is packed and noisy an all days of The Championships, but especially the men's singles final). The other contributor spoke about the great Dan Maskell passing away "soon after". He actually lived for at least another 13 years, as his last commentary was in 1991, and he was a guest of honour the following year, the year in which I believe he died.
***spoiler alert***
The proof of this film being pure fantasy was not so much that Dean Martin Jr's character reached the Wimbledon final. It was that the winner was Guillermo Vilas, who in reality only once got as far as the quarter-final!
***spoiler alert***
The proof of this film being pure fantasy was not so much that Dean Martin Jr's character reached the Wimbledon final. It was that the winner was Guillermo Vilas, who in reality only once got as far as the quarter-final!