"In tennis, 'love' means zero. When you 'love' you lose." (Lizzy)

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2005)

Kirsten Dunst as American bad girl tennis pro Lizzie Bradbury and Paul Bettany as aging British tennis pro Peter Colt make this movie fun to watch, although in fairness it is quite a simple little romantic movie. In my mind I compare it to another American/Brit romantic comedy, "Notting Hill", and 'Wimbledon" is not even in the same class in charm and wit. My wife and I enjoyed it, with fairly well done tennis matches, but is best rated at about '5' or '6' of 10.
SPOILERS. Peter had already decided to retire from competitive tennis, and take a job as the club pro at a club for the rich and pampered. He once had been rated as high as 11 in 1996, but now was 119, and really had no hope at Wimbledon, which he entered as a wild card. He wasn't even the best British pro there, and this was to be his last tournament. Quite by accident, given the wrong room key at the hotel, he meets Lizzy when he finds her in the shower of the hotel room. A romantic encounter later and Peter finds that Lizzie has become his tennis 'muse.' With her in the stands, and in his mind, he plays better than he had in a long time. He wins matches and, with the help of an injured opponent, makes it to the Wimbledon final.
He is losing the final badly when heavy rain delays the match. Aborting her trip back to the States after losing her match, she shows up in Peter's locker room, encourages him, and casually tells him how to "read" his opponent's serve. Long story short, he wins Wimbledon. After he hugs his family in the stands, he finds Lizzy. The movie ends with a cut to a future time in New York, they have children, Peter coaches tennis, and Lizzie won both the US Open and Wimbledon before she retired.
The DVD has a few interesting extras, the best showing how they filmed the tennis matches without a ball in play, and digitally added the ball in post production, a necessity to get realistic tennis action.