Prince William was 28 this week, which has nothing to do with tennis. Except that when this tiny royal baby was being taken home all those years ago, I got a call from the office to drive across London to see the Prince and Princess of Wales show off their new lad to waiting crowds, writes Shirley Tart.

This is only relevant at all because when the call came, I was actually covering Wimbledon. Both Wills and I are a good bit older now; he is heavily into football and I’m still writing about Wimbledon tennis.

A lot of balls have been smashed across the net since then – and I was one of those crazy fans who even before I was lucky enough to join the press pack, sat out on pavements in hope of a ticket.

So me and top tennis go back a long, long way.

And while this is officially one of the worst years for British performances with (as of this Wednesday morning) only our Number 1 still battling for Britain, the tournament itself is fantastic.

The corporate holding of breath in disbelief as Roger Federer nearly went out on that first Monday seems years ago now. The champion has gone from strength to strength ever since. That longest match in tennis history was one of the unbelievables and one which forever more you can say ‘I was there’ as statistics are being unfurled year after year.

I saw the eventual victor (if you could say there was one) finally leave after a next day trouncing. Poor old John Isner, American’s pride and glory for the moment, could hardly walk, let alone run or jump. And as he hobbled away from Court 5, never before can a player so convincingly defeated on the moment, have won such a standing ovation. Not surprisingly, he’s already doing the celebrity round back home.

This is something, of course, which her Majesty the Queen has done with aplomb all of her life. She may be in rainy Canada now, but last week she gave tennis goers an added treat when she turned up to watch our Andy in action. He bowed beautifully, got to chat to her and more to the point – he won.

Let’s hope Her Majesty is a pointer for this weekend’s finals since the last time she was there, as we keep on saying, Virginia Wade took the women’s title.

But whatever happens by Sunday, Andy Murray has done us proud this week.

And on top of everything else that’s good, Shropshire’s Lawn Tennis Association member Cathie Sabin has just been elected vice president (from December) of the LTA. And father and twin sons Les, Andrew and Michael Davies from Shifnal are all tournament line judges at Wimbledon – we interview them all in Friday’s Shropshire Star as another tennis spectacular draws to a close.