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There have been relatively few movies using tennis as a backdrop but in this 2004 motion picture, now out on DVD, the filmmakers of the romantic comedy used perhaps the sport’s most iconic event to tell their story.

Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) once ranked among the Top 20 in the world, has slipped to 119th and is heading into his last Wimbledon tournament and venturing out of a pro playing career when he runs into Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst ), a rising star and somewhat bad girl of the ladies tour. The two strike up a whirlwind romance that gives his game new life, though Lizzie feels it’s going to be nothing but a passing fling.

As the passing fling instead gathers strength, Peter finds a new sense of confidence and begins advancing through the competition while his girl falters at the same time. In any event love turns out to be a good thing in tennis in this picture.

The SandC Interview: Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin 

Writers – “Wimbledon”

How did this project come about for you?

JF:        My husband and I (Mark Levin) work together and we have always loved tennis.

Actor Hugh Grant approached and asked us if we would be interested in writing something for him.

My father was British and played tennis in his youth and the idea of someone who thought his career was over came to us  when we were watching a tennis tournament, I believe it was actually the French Open.

Why do you think there have been so few films about this sport?

JF. When we were pitching it, I remember talking about the dramatic structure of having so many elimination rounds in a major tournament going from dozens of players to just one.

But in terms at looking at successful sports stories, somehow team sports work better than singular ones, but not for us, I loved “Tin Cup”.

ML: The sport has cinematic and dramatic appeal to us, but perhaps it has a lesser profile here than abroad especially at times when there are a lack of big American tennis stars at a given time.

JF: Something to do with that, but there certainly weren’t a lot tennis movies even when someone like John McEnroe was on the scene. So it has led me to believe if we are going to create another tennis movie, make it more international.

ML: Interestingly the filmmakers most interested in our project was a British company called Working Title. They understood the charm of that world. It is a compelling world and the idea of a journeyman tennis player and what it takes.

JF: Going on tour with the ATP was fabulous.

What movies did you study for inspiration for “Wimbledon”?

ML: (It) is a sports movie at its core. We viewed a lot of sports movies when we wrote the film which we actually wrote in 1999 and it came out in 2005. That is just how things take their time in Hollywood. We wrote it for Hugh Grant at the time who was attached. But as things change it ended up being a movie Paul Bettany would star in.

But we definitely were focused on the structure of sports movies. We looked at things like “Hoosiers” and “The Natural”,  viewing material to look at the inner life of the athlete and the structure of a tournament.

Producers are looking for an accepted structure but with enough of a twist to add a new perspective within that genre.

ML: (Yes) and that is where the notion of a sports movie/romantic comedy came from. Really telling a love story against the very hard structure of the winnowing of a field of 128 down to one which inherently from round to round has great structure.

JF: This character felt this particular phase of his life was over and kind of gets a new lease on it.

In the best movies, the sport is merely a backdrop to a bigger story, what do you consider to be the larger themes of “Wimbledon”?

JF: Persevering, not giving up on one’s dreams. All the things we teach our children.

Certainly our lead character Peter Colt, thinks he knows the outcome but he doesn’t. There is room for magic that you don’t understand.

Is there a story from the tennis world you feel would have the potential to become a film?

JF: Kind of feel we have done our tennis story, but I do love the genre and would love to do something again in sports. I think it is fun. Sports does provide this incredible backdrop where you can tell all these other stories.

What are your 5 favorite sports movies of all-time?

-The Natural

-Heaven Can Wait

-Color of Money

-Downhill Racer

-Bad News Bears