Top Tips for Summer Lazy Days
09 Aug 2019
05 Jul 2019
We’re now into the second week of Wimbledon, arguably the grandest tournament in tennis and an iconic part of the British summer, so what better time to serve up our favourite Wimbledon facts?
In the early years of Wimbledon, there was only a men’s singles championship until in 1884 the Ladies’ singles and men’s doubles were added. Now the All-England Club hosts men’s and women’s singles and doubles, mixed doubles, boy’s singles and doubles, and girls singles and doubles. During Wimbledon there are also seniors doubles, and wheelchair singles and doubles competitions.
The most successful singles player at Wimbledon is without doubt Martina Navratilova. The Czech-born American notched up 9 Wimbledon singles titles and 11 doubles titles during her career. Roger Federer, pictured, is the most successful male, lifting the men’s singles trophy a record 8 times as well as picking up Olympic silver on centre court when Wimbledon hosted the tennis events for London 2012.
The Lowest ranked winner of Wimbledon was Goran Ivanisevic who memorably in 2001, then ranked 125th in the world kept defying the odds round by round, including an epic semi final against Tim Henman, to claim his one and only grand-slam title. Venus Williams was 31st in the world rankings in 2007, following a wrist injury the year before, fought her way through the field to claim her 4th Wimbledon singles title. The youngest ever men’s winner was Boris Becker, who was 17 in 1985, claiming his first singles title – he was younger than the winner of the juniors singles competition that year.
The longest match in tennis history was played at Wimbledon, it was between American John Isner and Nicolas Mahut of France in 2010. The first-round match went on for a whopping 11 hours 5 minutes and was played over 3 days with each player serving over 100 aces, the final scores were 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–3), 70–68 – a total of 183 games. The final set lasted over 8 hours with Isner eventually winning. The longest Wimbledon final occurred two years before when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal fought out an epic match lasting almost 5 hours, Nadal edged out his opponent to claim the 2008 title, his first at Wimbledon.
The BBC has cumulative audience of around 26million and in 2013 a peak of 17.29million people watched Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets to famously win his first Wimbledon title. But the record for the biggest British viewing audience wasn’t a Henman or Murray match but was back in 1980 when Bjorn Borg took on John McEnroe in the final that year. A huge 17.3million people tuned in to watch Borg’s five set victory, his 5th and final Wimbledon title. The match was the focal point of a film made about the rivalry between the two players in 2017.
Not only is Wimbledon the longest running Tennis competition in the world having been around since 1877. The Robinsons fruit drink brand have been sponsoring the championships since 1935, but that’s not the longest sponsorship association. Wimbledon has the longest running sponsorship in sports history due to the tennis balls being supplied by sports company Slazenger since 1902. Speaking of tennis balls, a mind-boggling 54,000 of them are used throughout the tournament each year. Tennis balls used to be white, but were changed to the familiar bright yellow in 1986 so they could be seen more clearly on TV.
Wimbledon is a prim and proper type of event, steeped in tradition. There’s a strict dress code for officials and ball-boys and girls and players must wear all white. There are Royal Box seats at Centre Court, and if the Queen or Prince Charles are attending, players are expected to bow to the Royal Box before their match. Wimbledon is the largest catering operation for a single annual sporting event in Europe. During the two weeks of Wimbledon over 20,000 bottles of Champagne are served, over 300,000 glasses of Pimm’s as well as 23 tonnes of Strawberries.
Live coverage of Wimbledon continues until Sunday 14th July on the BBC
