Imagine a horde of rioting football hooligans bursting the gates of Wimbledon and flooding onto the courts mid-match.

Imagine the officials instructing the players to play on.

“Yes, the game is more challenging with drunken louts milling about, vomiting on the grass, intercepting the ball in order to hurl it at the head of the nearest player, and snatching rackets to perform scorching air-guitar solos on them.

“But,” the officials reason, “many of these people have never experienced the great sport of tennis. If they see the game up close, played by the best players, perhaps they will be won over to tennis. Maybe they will become the most passionate tennis fans.”

So the tennis players do their best to play around the active and occasionally brutal interference of the hooligans, and try to win the conditions required to play tennis by playing even better tennis, by the rules of tennis.