\u201cI\u2019ve got no regrets,\u201d added Lloyd, whose urbane tones have been a reassuring constant during the BBC\u2019s coverage of Queen\u2019s and Wimbledon for decades. \u201cI\u2019m very fortunate to do it. I\u2019ve been a lucky guy. It feels strange to be doing my last match, but I\u2019m happy, because it\u2019s been a really good ride. I can\u2019t even tell you whether it\u2019s 25 years now or 27, because I\u2019m not very good at dates. But I think I must have started when it was black-and-white TV.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BBC has been looking to modernise its coverage this year after reports that senior figures at the All England Club had complained of a lack of innovation. Laura Robson is among the pundits who have popped up in new courtside reporting roles during matches, and Jamie Murray is fulfilling a data-driven role as a technical analyst.<\/p>\n
Lloyd, however, is not a broadcaster with a close interest in statistics. \u201cIt\u2019s a different audience now,\u201d he said. \u201cMuch more analytics. There\u2019s stats going left, right and centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when I was starting out, [former BBC legend] Dan Maskell said to me, \u2018Always remember your audience.\u2019 He didn\u2019t mean it in a condescending way, but he said \u201875 per cent of the viewers are housewives who tune in for two weeks, but don\u2019t follow tennis for the rest of the year, and don\u2019t know how to score a tie-break. If you talk about pronating the wrist on the serve, they really won\u2019t understand what you\u2019re on about, so keep it general.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cDan would use very short, very simple phrases. \u2018Oh, I say.\u2019 Or \u2018A peach of a shot.\u2019 He also had one of the greatest voices of all time, which helped. I always tried to listen, not to over-talk, and just to be conversational as much as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lloyd\u2019s first experience of broadcasting had come in 1993 on American cable network HBO, after Jimmy Connors and his great pal Vitas Gerulaitis had both turned down the post. That was a testosterone-fuelled environment where commentators were allowed to swear \u2013 as long as it wasn\u2019t the F-word \u2013 and the directors used even more industrial language over the talkback system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve got no regrets,\u201d added Lloyd, whose urbane tones have been a reassuring constant during the BBC\u2019s coverage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[243,217,101,5438,118,56,54,55,164415],"class_list":["post-687528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-bbc","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wimbledon-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}