TENNIS may not be everybody’s flute of Pimms – and I had a volley at the racquet-fest just a fortnight ago for its inherent exclusivity, especially enveloping the Wimbledon marathon – but it does present a refreshing change in modern sport.

Like many other compelling one-on-one sports it serves up appetite-whetting duels, but unlike several other professions it does not go in for pre-clash hype.

You don’t see Rafa Nadal needling away in the run-up to a semi-final, nor Novak Djokovic down-baiting a would-be foe.

Arguably the most guilty is boxing. And in the past few weeks the cruellest sport has been treated to some of its worst excesses in the build-up to tonight’s heavyweight showdown between Britain’s World Boxing Association champion David Haye and World Boxing Organisation and International Boxing Federation king Wladimir Klitschko.

After what seems months, if not years, of insults, tirades and halitosis-like bad-mouthing, the duo will finally touch leather in the Ukrainian’s Hamburg base where all three world belts will be on the line.

But let’s be honest, Haye v Klitschko – a world title showdown actually worth its weight – has increasingly become a match-up of tedium and tawdriness.

The fact it’s on pay-for-view satellite television exacerbates the cheap nature of the entire build-up.

The paymasters want their pound of flesh in the form of paying customers shelling out for the privilege, so that sometimes reduces the fighters to having to dance to a manic tattoo aimed at drumming up interest.

If a fight is quality enough – and this is – then those who are genuinely interested will buy, even amid gloomy economic times. But the brash broadcaster that is Sky will not let it lie there. It floods, it drenches, it drowns the viewer in all matters of pre-fight hype to the point that it will more than likely have the opposite effect – turning potential watchers off.

Sky, by its exclusivity, has diluted the strength of boxing as a spectator sport in this country. They may provide bigger purses, but even then usually it’s not the fighters who benefit the most, but those who don’t take the blows, but wear suits and speak in dollar and pounds signs accompanied by the clicking of nought upon nought upon nought.

Unfortunately for British fans, the height of the excess, sorry despairing depth, has been plumbed by Haye.

The Bermondsey battler, a true champion in the ring where he displays as much class as courage, appears to relish the dissing of opponents.

His rivalry with the Klitschko brothers, Wladimir’s older brother Vitali is also a heavyweight title-holder, goes back several tasteless years, during which Haye has not only slammed the siblings, but denigrated other opponents too en route to tonight’s biggest test of his heavyweight credentials.

For the sake of British boxing I truly hope the Hayemaker vanquishes one-half of the Ukrainian strike-force, but it might be too much to expect him to do so with the grace of, say, Lennox Lewis.

It’s as if Sky TV and Haye are perfect bed-mates – bigger, better, brasher – as were the satellite station and Prince Naseem Hamed, whom the television company first lured to its high-definition portals to begin the undermining of national coverage of the sport.

But Haye does not have to talk trash. His fists have so reduced so many foes to rubble and it is on those weapons of body-mass destruction that he should concentrate, rather than the crass reputation-shredding of anyone who dares to face him across a roped arena.

BOXING may be the cruellest sport, but there was an element of vindictiveness, albeit unintentional, in SW19 during the second week of tennis coverage.

There in the Royal Box was victorious European Ryder Cup-winning captain Colin Montgomerie, and just below in the choicer seats a certain Rory McIlroy, recent winner of the US Open championship, his first major. M and M mmmmmmm... but just one major winner. Sorry, Monty.

DAFTEST stat of the week. Deffo the news that England’s national football team are fourth in the world rankings, above the likes of Brazil and Argentina.

Fourth? Who’s been watching England’s latest matches, Homer? And I don’t mean Homer Simpson, though England’s position is one of the biggest laughs for many a year.