PEOPLE keep telling me I should write a column on tennis.

It’s the ‘Wimbledon fever’, I guess.

If you follow Smart Alex you’ll know I’m a stickler for tradition; if it ain’t broke, why fix it, right?

That’s why I love Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world – and Europe’s largest single annual sporting catering operation, I'm told.

I’ve only been the one time, when the club I played for as a teenager was handed some tickets.

It rained, but I loved it.

We sat (on our coats) on Henman Hill to watch the British number one in an era that every kid drank Robinson’s fruit juice and had a version of Tim’s Slazenger racket.

We were all pioneers of the serve-and-volley.

Each year we convinced ourselves Tiger Tim would break the British duck on grass, or that we’d even settle for Greg Rusedski to claim the title at Henman’s expense.

How spoilt we are now to have witnessed a Wimbledon champion in Andy Murray.

Warrington Guardian: TIGER, TIGER, BURNING BRIGHT? Is it Tim Henman's year at last?

But the whole country gets caught up in tennis hysteria during Wimbledon time, and I’m confident it’s the only Grand Slam to have such an affect on the host nation.

We’re relatively rubbish at tennis, Murray aside, but the tournament grips us and – even if the other 50 weeks of the year we don’t care who or where they are – we raise a glass of Pimms to our British hopefuls.

In fact, the other 50 weeks of the year we don’t even drink Pimms, or eat large quantities of strawberries and the biggest attraction in SW19 is Uncle Bulgaria.

It seems to be the one sporting occasion in this country we don’t over-hype our athletes to merely knock them down again.

Wimbledon fever grips the nation, and our wildcards have nothing to lose – win a set, win our hearts.

But I saw an American friend of mine post on Facebook last week how he had waited ’10 hours’ in the queue before calling it quits at 5pm.

Schoolboy error, Jimmy, everybody knows you have to camp over if you don’t have a ticket pal.

This isn’t Flushing Meadows.

There’s just nothing synonymous about the French, Aussie or US Open with their nation – Wimbledon is quintessentially British and we love it, play up to it, become engrossed by it.

We become know-it-alls on Heather Watson, Laura Robson and Aljaz Bedene, we are James Ward’s biggest fans and follow Jamie Murray’s mixed doubles exploits.

We watch more than 50,000 balls get served up by over 750 players across 19 courts and we love every moment.

For two weeks of the year are tennis fanatics – Wimbledon, you are ace.

But, which player has recorded the most aces in one Championship?

Re last week, the polka-dot jersey is given to King of the Mountains.