Wimbledon

Wimbledon

ABOUT WIMBLEDON

• Wimbledon is one of the world’s most celebrated tennis events and one of four tennis Grand Slam events held each year.
• Wimbledon is the world’s oldest tennis tournament, established at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (now often referred to as AELTC) in 1877.
• They are held annually and comprise, in chronological order, '
  • The Australian Open,
  • The French Open
  • Wimbledon
  • The US Open
• Taking place at the All England Club in London, it runs for two weeks and attracts over 500,000 spectators.
• Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event to be played on grass courts.
• The grass is tended to year-round. And during the event, it’s cut to a height of exactly 8 mm.

• About 250 ball boys and girls - known as BBGs - have the tough job of keeping track of all those fast-moving tennis balls.
• The first Wimbledon championship took place in 1877, making it the oldest tennis tournament in the world.
• Men’s Singles was the only event played that year. Ladies’ Singles and Men’s Doubles events came on the scene in 1884.
• Great Britain’s Spencer Gore won the first trophy back in 1877 while Maud Watson won the inaugural Ladies’ Singles Championship in 1884.
• And, in 1913, the Ladies’ Doubles and Mixed Doubles events were added to the tournament.
• Wimbledon rules state that all players must be dressed almost entirely in white. Umpires can ask a player to change if they don’t meet the dress code.
• 54, 250 balls are used during the tournament and are replaced after every 7-9 matches. Balls are also kept in a refrigerator to keep them in shape.
• Interestingly, Wimbledon once used white tennis balls. But they were replaced with yellow balls in 1986 to make them more visible to TV cameras.
• A Harris hawk called Rufus is responsible for keeping the grounds pigeon-free.

WIMBLEDON RECORDS

• The longest match ever played at Wimbledon took place at the 2010 tournament.
• John Isner of the United States defeated French player Nicolas Mahut in a match that lasted 11 hours and five minutes and was played over the course of three days.
• The record for the Most Wimbledon titles in Ladies’ Singles belongs to retired Czech and American player Martina Navratilova with nine victories.
• She is also the Oldest winner, as She won the mixed doubles match in 2003 at 46 years, 261 days old.
• The Youngest winner in the history is Martina Hingis, who won the Ladies' Doubles Championship in 1996 at 15 years, 282 days old.
• In Men’s Singles, the record for most titles was by Roger Federer, who won the record eighth men’s singles title at Wimbledon 2017.
• It also extended his Grand Slam win record to 19.
• Roger Federer won last year’s (2017) title without dropping a set, only the second man to win Wimbledon in the Open Era without dropping a set, along with Bjorn Borg in 1976.

• Roger Federer is the oldest player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon (35 years, 342 days old) after Arthur Ashe, who won the title at 31 years, 355 days old in 1975.
• The record for fastest men’s serve at Wimbledon belongs to US player Taylor Dent, whose ball clocked in at 238 kph.
• And American Venus Williams holds the record for the fastest women’s serve after smashing a tennis ball about 205 kph.
• The loudest known grunt during Wimbledon came from Russia’s Maria Sharapova in 2009.
• It reached about 105 decibels - the equivalent of standing beside an accelerating motorcycle!

• Players used to bow to the Royal Box upon entering or leaving the Centre Court. In 2003, the President of the All England Club, the Duke of Kent, decided to discontinue that tradition.
• The players are now supposed to bow only if His Royal Highness Prince of Wales, or Her Majesty the Queen is present.
• This new tradition was followed at the 2010 Championships when the Queen was in attendance.

MOST ACES EVER SERVED AT ONE WIMBLEDON

• The most aces ever served at one Wimbledon –
  • Gentlemen: 212 - Goran Ivanisevic (CRO) 2001
  • Ladies: 102 - Serena Williams (USA) 2012

PECULIAR FACTS ABOUT WIMBLEDON

• The first televised airing of The Championships, Wimbledon was by the BBC on 21 June 1937.
• The BBC served 24.1 million stream requests during Wimbledon in 2017, via BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer, making it the most streamed Wimbledon ever.
• Since Wimbledon weather records started in 1922, there have only been seven championships recorded without rain interruptions.
• October 1940 - During WWII, a bomb hits Centre Court, which results in the loss of 1,200 seats in the stadium.
• 2007 - Female winners receive the same cash awards as the male winners for the first time.

WIMBLEDON 2018

• The 2018 tournament was the 132nd edition of The Championships, the 125th staging of the Ladies’ Singles Championship event, the 51st in the Open Era and the third Grand Slam tournament of the year.
• The Wimbledon total prize money for 2018 had increased to £34,000,000, up by 7.6% on 2017.

• The winners of the men's and women's singles titles will earn £2.25m.
• Prize money for the men’s and women’s doubles and wheelchair players were also increased for the 2018 competition.
• In the Men's draw, Novak Djokovic took down South Africa’s Kevin Anderson in straight sets for his fourth Wimbledon title and 13th Grand Slam victory.

• Roger Federer was the top seed and defending champion, but lost in the quarterfinals to Kevin Anderson.
• The semifinal match between Anderson and John Isner, lasting 6 hours 36 minutes, was the second longest men's singles match at Wimbledon and the third longest men's singles match in tennis history.
• Anderson became the first man representing South Africa to reach the Wimbledon men's singles final since Brian Norton in 1921.
• Angelique Kerber won her third Grand Slam singles title and Maiden Wimbledon, defeating Serena Williams in the rematch of the 2016 final.

• Kerber became the first German since Graf in 1996 to lift the trophy.
• Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain) was the defending champion but lost in the second round to Alison Van Uytvanck (Belgium).
• This was the earliest exit of the defending champion since Steffi Graf's first-round defeat in 1994.
• The American pair Mike Bryan and Jack Sock beat South Africa's Klaasen and New Zealand's Venus and won the Men’s doubles title

• Barbora Krejcikova (Czech Republic) and Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) beat Nicole Melichar (USA) and Kveta Peschke (Czech Republic) and claimed the women's doubles title.

• Alexander Peya (Austria) and Nicole Melichar (USA) won the Mixed Doubles title by defeating Murray (UK)and Victoria Azarenka (Belarus).

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