So why am I assailed so regularly with the feeling that the sport I watched in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was consistently more exciting?

No doubt the explanation is partly me - I was growing up, I was experiencing many of the events that thrilled me, whether live or on TV, for the first time.

The broadcast medium itself magically transformed from monochrome to colour during this period, which probably also had an impact.

But I cannot let the latest renewal of Wimbledon - the original and the best lawn tennis championship - recede into history without highlighting one example of where the old days really were better.

I am not the keenest tennis spectator, but I do enjoy watching doubles.

It seems to me that the tactics are much more interesting than sometimes repetitive singles matches, and some of the rallies, with the ball pinballing across the net on the volley, are simply astonishing.

I used to love it when the big names of the day teamed up and took to the courts for their doubles encounters.

Not only was the tennis often breathtaking, but they were so visibly enjoying themselves and usually playing up to the crowd.

Ilie Năstase and Jimmy Connors, Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals, John McEnroe and Peter Fleming, Maria Bueno and Nancy Richey, and of course John Newcombe and Tony Roche - the best, most enduring partnerships still trip off the tongue.

Chris Evert and Martina Navrátilová even played together while the latter was in her teens, winning the women’s doubles at Wimbledon in 1976.

Nowadays, doubles tennis has become a specialist discipline in its own right and the top singles players do not often seem to bother with it at Grand Slams.

Going back through the Wimbledon roll of honour, I think the last time a men’s singles champion won the men’s doubles was in 1992, when two former champs, John McEnroe and Michael Stich, teamed up to claim it.

One does not have to go so far back in the women’s competitions - the Williams sisters won the doubles for the fourth and last time in 2016.

In mixed doubles, while Martina Hingis teamed up with Britain’s Jamie Murray to win in 2017, I do not think a Wimbledon men’s singles champion has won since all the way back in 1962, when the Australian Neale Fraser triumphed in partnership with Margaret Osborne duPont, although the eight-times Grand Slam-winning Ken Rosewall won with Margaret Court in 1968.

Fraser, incidentally, is the last man to secure a triple crown of titles - singles, doubles and mixed doubles - at a single Grand Slam event, the 1960 US Open, raising the question: "Will there be another?"

It seems fairly clear why the game has evolved in the way that it has.

For one thing, winning a Grand Slam singles title requires an immense physical effort, sustained over two weeks, sometimes in intense heat.

In terms of sheer expenditure of calories, riding the Tour de France bicycle race, or similar, is one of the few sporting endeavours I can think of that would be in any way comparable.

Combine that with the financial transformation that has overtaken tennis, in common with other popular sports, over recent decades and I think you have the basis of an explanation.

When Newcombe won the men’s singles in 1970, the prize money was set at £3,000 ($3,900/€3,500) - it must have made sense to try to add another £1,000 ($1,300/€1,165) by taking a crack at the doubles with a partner.

By the time Stich and McEnroe teamed up for their doubles success in 1992, the men’s singles prize money had soared 88-fold to £265,000 ($347,000/€308,500).

Carlos Alcaraz’s prize for beating Novak Djokovic on Sunday (July 16) amounted to £2.35 million ($3 million/€2.75 million) - that is 783 times what Newcombe won 53 years ago.

Over the same 53 years, the prize for winning the women’s singles title has multiplied a staggering 1,567 times.

Given the scale of these rewards and the extreme physical effort needed if you are to go all the way, why on earth would you risk entering the doubles competitions if you are a realistic contender for a singles title?

There has also been a degree of comparative erosion in doubles prize money, though I doubt this has been enough to influence players’ decisions on whether or not to take part.

In 1970, the men’s doubles prize was worth 33 per cent of the singles, and the women’s 40 per cent.

These had both come down to 25.5 per cent by 2023.

Only in the mixed doubles has erosion been more significant.

In 1970, Năstase and Casals split £500 ($650/€580), the equivalent of 16.7 per cent of the men’s singles payout, or 33 per cent of the women’s.

While 2023 mixed doubles champions Mate Pavić and Lyudmyla Kichenok pocketed £128,000 ($167,500/€150,000), this amounted to just 5.5 per cent of the men’s or women’s singles prize.

So I get why the nature of Grand Slam doubles competitions has changed.

Remembering how much fun I used to have watching the great players competing in them though, I cannot help but feel it is a pity.