Archive for the ‘Wimbledon’ Category
Wimbledon History, Trivia & Stats
The oldest and most prestigious of the world’s tennis tournaments was played for the first time in 1877, at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London where it has remained throughout it esteemed history.
The All England was originally formed as a croquet club, only adding the ‘tennis’ in the year that the first tennis championships were held. While croquet is obviously no longer a focus at the club, for sentimental reasons it has remained part of the title…although there was a short lived attempt to have it removed in the early 1880′s.
It didn’t take long for the tournament to garner attention from overseas competitors, with the first foreigner to claim a title being American May Sutton who won the women’s singles in 1905. Norman Brookes of Australia soon after won the men’s title in 1907 and its fate was assured as it went on to become one of the world’s premiere sporting events.
As with the other majors, Wimbledon opened its doors to professional players in 1968 when the Open era began and has remained as the only major to be played on the traditional grass surface.
This has created a stark contrast in particular with the major that proceeds it – The French Open, which is played on clay. These two surfaces can almost be seen as the exact opposite of each other. Grass is very slick with the ball skidding much more and has tradtionally been seen as a serve-volleyers surface. The clay at Rolland Garros is much slower and is more suited to more »
