The tournament takes place over two weeks in late June and early July, culminating with the Ladies' and Gentlemen's Singles Final, scheduled respectively for the second Saturday and Sunday. Each year, five major events are contested, as well as four junior events and four invitational events.
The hard court Australian Open and clay court French Open precede Wimbledon in the calendar year. The hard court US Open follows. For men, the grass court AEGON Championships, also in London, as well as the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany, serve as respective warm-up events. For women, the AEGON Classic in Birmingham and 2 joint events, the UNICEF Open in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands and the AEGON International Eastbourne serve as warm-up events to Wimbledon.
Wimbledon traditions include a strict dress code for competitors, the eating of strawberries and cream, and Royal patronage. The tournament is also notable for the absence of sponsor advertising around the courts. In 2009, Wimbledon's Centre Court was fitted with a retractable roof to prevent rain delaying and interrupting Centre Court matches during the tournament.
In 1875, lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier and originally called 'Sphairistike', was added to the activities of the club. In the spring of 1877, the club was re-titled 'The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club' and signalled its change of name by instituting the first Lawn Tennis Championship. A new code of laws (replacing the code until then administered by the Marylebone Cricket Club) was drawn up for the event. Today's rules are similar except for details such as the height of the net and posts and the distance of the service line from the net.
The only event held in 1877 was the Gentlemen's Singles, which was won by Spencer Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player, from a field of 22. About 200 spectators paid one shilling each to watch the final.
The lawns at the ground were arranged so that the principal court was located in the middle with the others arranged around it; hence the title 'Centre Court', which was retained when the Club moved in 1922 to the present site in Church Road, although not a true description of its location. However, in 1980 four new courts were brought into commission on the north side of the ground, which meant the Centre Court was once more correctly defined. The opening of the new No. 1 Court in 1997 emphasised the description.
By 1882, activity at the club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year the word 'croquet' was dropped from the title. However, for sentimental reasons, it was restored in 1889 and since then the title has remained The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
In 1884, the All England Club added Ladies' Singles and Gentlemen's Doubles. Ladies' Doubles and Mixed Doubles were added in 1913. Until 1922, the reigning champion had to play only in the final, against whoever had won through to challenge him/her. As with the other three Grand Slam events, Wimbledon was contested by top-ranked amateur players until the advent of the open era in tennis in 1968. No British man has won the singles event at Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936 and no British woman has won the Ladies Singles since Virginia Wade in 1977, although Annabel Croft and Laura Robson won the Girls' Championship in 1984 and 2008, respectively. The Championship was first televised in 1937.
Stage one of the plan was completed for the 1997 championships and involved building in Aorangi Park the new No. 1 Court, a broadcast centre, two extra grass courts and a tunnel under the hill linking Church Road and Somerset Road.
Stage two involved the removal of the old No. 1 Court complex to make way for the new Millennium Building, providing extensive facilities for the players, press, officials and members, and the extension of the West Stand of the Centre Court with 728 extra seats.
Stage three has been completed with the construction of an entrance building, housing club staff, museum, bank and ticket office.
A new retractable roof was built in time for the 2009 championships, marking the first time in the tournament's history that rain will not stop play for a lengthly time on Centre Court. The All England Club tested the new roof at an event called A Centre Court Celebration on Sunday, 17 May 2009, which featured exhibition matches involving Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters and Tim Henman. The first Championship match to take place under the roof was the completion of the fourth round women's singles match between Dinara Safina and Amélie Mauresmo. The first match to be played in its entirety under the new roof was between Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka on 29 June 2009, which Murray won 2–6, 6–3, 6–3, 5–7, 6–3. The match in which Novak Djokovic defeated Olivier Rochus at Centre Court in the first round of the 2010 Championships recorded the latest ever finish at The Championships, concluding at 10.58pm.
A new 4000-seat No. 2 Court was built on the site of the old No. 13 Court in time for the 2009 Championships.
A new 2000-seat No. 3 Court is being built on the site of the old No. 2 Court and the old No. 3 Court.
No mixed doubles event is held at this level.
Until 1922, the winners of the previous year's competition (except in the Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles) were automatically granted byes into the final round (then known as the challenge round). This led to many winners retaining their titles for successive years, as they were able to rest while their opponent competed from the start of the competition. From 1922, the prior-year's champions were not granted byes but were required to play all the rounds, like other tournament competitors.
Wimbledon is scheduled for 13 days, beginning on a Monday and ending on a Sunday with the middle Sunday a designated rest day. The five main events span both weeks, but the youth and invitational events are held mainly during the second week. Traditionally, there is no play on the "Middle Sunday", which is considered a rest day. However, rain has forced play on the Middle Sunday three times in the Championship's history: in 1991, 1997, and 2004. On each of these occasions, Wimbledon has staged a "People's Sunday", with unreserved seating and readily available, inexpensive tickets, allowing those with more limited means to sit on the show courts. Additionally, if the tournament is not completed by the end of the second Sunday, all remaining matches are postponed until "People's Monday".
The Committee of Management and the Referee evaluate all applications for entry, and determine which players may be admitted to the tournament directly. The committee may admit a player without a high enough ranking as a wild card. Usually, wild cards are players who have performed well during previous tournaments, or would stimulate public interest in Wimbledon by participating. The only wild card to win the Gentlemen's Singles Championship was Goran Ivanišević in 2001. Players and pairs who neither have high enough rankings nor receive wild cards may participate in a qualifying tournament held one week before Wimbledon at the Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton. The singles qualifying competitions are three-round events; the same-sex doubles competitions last for only one round. There is no qualifying tournament for Mixed Doubles. No qualifier has won either the Gentlemen's Singles or the Ladies' Singles tournaments. The furthest that any qualifier has progressed in the main draw of a Singles tournament is the semi-final round: John McEnroe in 1977 (Gentlemen's Singles), Vladimir Voltchkov in 2000 (Gentlemen's Singles), and Alexandra Stevenson in 1999 (Ladies' Singles).
Players are admitted to the junior tournaments upon the recommendations of their national tennis associations, on their International Tennis Federation world rankings and, in the case of the singles events, on the basis of a qualifying competition. The Committee of Management determines which players may enter the four invitational events.
The Committee seeds the top players and pairs on the basis of their rankings. However, the Committee does also change the seedings due to a player's previous grass court performance. A majority of the entrants are unseeded. Only two unseeded players have ever won the Gentlemen's Singles Championship: Boris Becker in 1985 and Goran Ivanišević in 2001. (In 1985 there were only 16 seeds and Becker was ranked 20th at the time; Ivanišević, however, was ranked 125th when he won as a Wild Card entrant.) No unseeded player has captured the Ladies' Singles title; the lowest seeded female champion was Venus Williams, who won in 2007 as the twenty-third seed, beating her own record from 2005, when Williams won as the fourteenth seed. Unseeded pairs have won the doubles titles on numerous occasions; the 2005 Gentlemen's Doubles champions were not only unseeded, but also (for the first time ever) qualifiers.
Grounds Schedule:
The grounds open at 10.30am on each day of playing. On the Centre Court, play starts at 1pm, with exception of the final two days of the competition (Ladies' and Gentlemen's Finals). On both of these days, play on these courts begins at 2pm. On courts 2-19, play begins at noon for at least the first eight days of the competition. It then starts at 11am for the Junior matches on the middle Saturday and during the second week.
The nineteen courts used for Wimbledon are composed purely of ryegrass.
The main show courts, Centre Court and No. 1 Court, are normally used only for two weeks a year, during the Championships, but play can extend into a third week in exceptional circumstances. The remaining seventeen courts are regularly used for other events hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The show courts will, however, be pressed into action for the second time in three months in 2012 as Wimbledon will host the tennis events of the 2012 Olympic Games. One of the show courts is also used for home ties of the GB teams in the Davis Cup on occasions.
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event played on grass courts. At one time, all the Majors, except the French Open, were played on grass. The US Open abandoned grass for a synthetic clay surface in 1975 and changed again to a hard surface (DecoTurf) with its 1978 move to the National Tennis Center. The Australian Open abandoned grass for Rebound Ace, a different type of hard surface, in 1988, and switched to yet another type of hard surface, Plexicushion, in 2008.
The principal court, Centre Court, was opened in 1922 when the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved from Worple Road to Church Road. The Church Road venue was larger and was needed to meet the ever-growing public demand.
Due to the possibility of rain during Wimbledon, a retractable roof was installed prior to the 2009 Championship. The retractable roof is designed to close/open in about 10 minutes and will be closed primarily to protect play from inclement (and, if necessary, extremely hot) weather during The Championships. When the roof is being opened or closed, play is suspended. During a Wimbledon Championship match, the first time the roof was closed was on Monday 29 June 2009, involving Amélie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina. The court has a capacity of 15,000. At its south end is the Royal Box, from which members of the Royal Family and other dignitaries watch matches. Centre Court usually hosts the finals and semifinals of the main events, as well as many matches in the earlier rounds involving top-seeded players or local favourites.
The second most important court is No. 1 Court. The court was constructed in 1997 to replace the old No. 1 Court, which was adjacent to Centre Court. The old No. 1 Court was demolished because its capacity for spectators was too low. The court was said to have had a unique, more intimate atmosphere and was a favourite of many players. The new No. 1 Court has a capacity of approximately 11,000.
From 2009, a new No. 2 Court is being used at Wimbledon with a capacity for 4,000 people. To obtain planning permission, the playing surface is around 3.5m below ground level, ensuring that the single-storey structure is only about 3.5m above ground level, and thus not affecting local views. Plans to build on the current site of Court 13 were dismissed due to the high capacity of games that will be played at the 2012 Olympic Games. The old No. 2 Court has been renamed as No. 3 Court. The old No. 2 Court was known as the "Graveyard of Champions" because many highly seeded players were eliminated there during early rounds over the years, including Ilie Năstase, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams. The court has a capacity of 2,192 + 770 standing. In 2011 a new No. 3 Court and a new No. 4 Court will be unveiled on the sites of the old No. 2 and 3 courts.
At the northern end of the grounds is a giant television screen on which important matches are broadcast. Fans watch from an area of grass officially known as the Aorangi Terrace. When British players do well at Wimbledon, the hill attracts fans for them, and is often re-named by the press for them: Greg Rusedski's followers convened at "Rusedski Ridge", and Tim Henman has had the hill nicknamed Henman Hill. As both of them have now retired and Andy Murray is the number 1 British player, the hill is now sometimes referred to as "Murray Mound" or "Murrayfield", as a reference to his Scottish heritage and the Scottish ground of the same name.
From 1947 ball boys were supplied by Goldings, the only Barnardos school to provide them. Previous to this, from the 1920s onwards, the ball boys had been provided by The Shaftsbury Children's Home.
Since 1969, BBGs have been provided by local schools. As of 2008 they are drawn from schools in the London boroughs of Merton, Sutton, Kingston and Wandsworth, as well as from Surrey. Traditionally, Wandsworth Boys Grammar School in Sutherland Grove, Southfields and Mayfield Girls School on West Hill in Wandsworth, both now defunct, were the schools of choice for selection of BBGs. This was possibly owing to their proximity to the All England Club. BBGs have an average age of 15, being drawn from the school years nine and ten. BBGs will serve for one, or if re-selected, two tournaments.
As of 2005, BBGs work in crews of six, two at the net, four at the corners, and crews rotate one hour on court, one hour off, (two hours depending on the court) for the day's play. Crews are not told which court they will be working on the day, to ensure the same standards across all courts. With the expansion of the number of courts, and lengthening the tennis day, as of 2008, the number of BBGs required is around 250. BBG service is paid, with a total of £120-£160 being paid to each ball boy or girl after the 13-day period. Along with this it is seen as a privilege, and seen as a valuable addition to a school leaver's curriculum vitae, showing discipline. BBG places are split 50:50 between boys and girls, with girls having been used since 1977, appearing on centre court since 1985.
Prospective BBGs are first nominated by their school headteacher, to be considered for selection. To be selected, a candidate must pass written tests on the rules of tennis, and pass fitness, mobility and other suitability tests, against initial preliminary instruction material. Successful candidates then commence a training phase, starting in February, in which the final BBGs are chosen through continual assessment. As of 2008, this training intake was 600. The training includes weekly sessions of physical, procedural and theoretical instruction, to ensure that the BBGs are fast, alert, self confident and adaptable to situations. As of 2007, early training occurs at Sutton Junior Tennis Centre, and then moves to the main courts after Easter.
The title "Mr" is not used for male players who are professionals on scoreboards but the prefix is retained for amateurs, although chair umpires refer to players as "Mr" when they use the replay challenge. The chair umpire will say "Mr
If a match is being played with two competitors of the same surname (e.g. Venus and Serena Williams, Bob and Mike Bryan), the chair umpire will specify whom they are referring to by stating the player's first name and surname during announcements (e.g. "Game, Miss Serena Williams", "Advantage, Mike Bryan").
The Wimbledon Finals are obliged to be shown live and in full on terrestrial television (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5) by government mandate. Highlights of the rest of the tournament must be provided by terrestrial stations; live coverage (excepting the finals) may be sought by satellite or cable TV.
Americans have made a tradition of NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon" specials at weekends, where live coverage starts early in the morning (the US being a minimum of 5 hours behind the UK) and continues well into the afternoon, interspersed with commentary and interviews from Bud Collins, whose tennis acumen and (in)famous patterned trousers are well-known to tennis fans in the USA. Collins was sacked by NBC in 2007, but was promptly hired by ESPN, the cable home for The Championships in the States. For many years NBC's primary Wimbledon host was veteran broadcaster Dick Enberg. From 1975 to 1999, premium channel HBO carried weekday coverage of Wimbledon. Hosts included Jim Lampley, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, John Lloyd and Barry MacKay among others.
Wimbledon was also involved, unintentionally, in a piece of television history, on 1 July 1967. That was when the first official colour broadcast took place in the UK. Four hours live coverage of Wimbledon was shown on BBC2 (then the only colour channel in the UK), and although footage of that historic match no longer survives, the Gentlemen's Final that year is still held in the BBC archives because it was the first Gentlemen's Final transmitted in colour.
Since 2007, the most anticipated Wimbledon matches have been transmitted in High Definition, on the BBC's free-to-air channel BBC HD, with continual live coverage during the tournament of Centre Court and Court No. 1 as well as an evening highlights show Today at Wimbledon.
In Ireland RTÉ broadcast the tournament during the 1980s and 1990s on their second channel RTÉ Two, they also provided highlights of the games in the evening. RTÉ made the decision in 1998 to discontinue broadcasting the tournament due to falling viewing figures and the large number of viewers watching on the BBC. Since 2005 TG4 Ireland's Irish language broadcaster provide coverage to the tournament. Live coverage is provided through the Irish language while they broadcast highlights in English at night.
The BBC's opening theme music for Wimbledon was composed by Keith Mansfield and is titled "Light and Tuneful". A piece titled "A Sporting Occasion" is the traditional closing theme, though nowadays coverage typically ends either with a montage set to a popular song or with no music at all.
In Australia, the free-to-air Nine Network covered Wimbledon for almost 40 years but decided to drop their broadcast, citing declining ratings and desire to use money saved to bid on other sports coverage, specifically AFL. In April 2011, it was announced that the Seven Network, along with its sister channel 7Two would broadcast the event in 2011.
The ballot has always been substantially oversubscribed. Successful applicants are selected at random by a computer.
The All England Club, through its subsidiary The All England Lawn Tennis Ground plc, issues Debentures to tennis fans every five years to raise funds for capital expenditure. Fans who invest thus in the club receive a pair of tickets for every day of the Wimbledon Championships for the five years the investment lasts. Only debenture holders are permitted to sell on their tickets to third parties, although for many years ticket touts have made a habit of illegally purchasing tickets allocated to non-debenture holders in the draw and selling them for a profit. Demand for debentures has increased in recent years, to such an extent that they are even traded on the London Stock Exchange.
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam tournament where fans without tickets for play can queue up and still get seats on Centre Court, Court 1 and Court 2. Sequentially numbered queue cards were introduced in 2003. From 2008, there is a single queue, allotted about 500 seats for each court. When they join the queue, fans are handed queue cards. Anyone who then wishes to leave the queue temporarily, even if in possession of a queue card, must agree their position with the others nearby in the queue and/or a steward.
To get into the show courts, fans will normally have to queue overnight at Wimbledon, This is done by fans from all over the world and is considered part of the Wimbledon experience in itself. The All-England Club allows overnight queueing and provides toilet and water facilities for campers. Those planning to queue overnight are advised to bring a tent and sleeping bag. Should a camper be successful in obtaining a ticket, the Club also provides unattended baggage storage where items not allowed into the grounds (including camping equipment such as tents) can be left while matches are in progress.
Times to queue up vary according to the weather, but anyone queueing up before 9 pm on a weekday should be able to get a show court ticket. Early in the morning when the line moves towards the Grounds, stewards walk along the line and hand out wristbands that are colour-coded to the specific court. The wrist band (and some cash) is exchanged at the ticket office for the ticket when the grounds open. Queuing for the show courts ends after the quarter finals have been completed.
At 2.40pm on Day Seven (Monday 28 June) of the 2010 Championships, the one-millionth numbered Wimbledon queue card was handed out to Rose Stanley from South Africa.
General admission to the grounds gives access to the outer courts and is possible without queuing overnight. Tickets returned by people leaving early go on sale at 2:30pm. The money goes to charity.
Prize money was first awarded in 1968, the first year that professional players were allowed to compete in the Championships.
Prior to 2007, among grand slam tournaments, Wimbledon and the French Open awarded more prize money in men's events than in women's events. In 2007, Wimbledon changed this policy, giving the same money for both events. There has been considerable controversy with people complaining that men play two thirds more sets than women at the tournament and thus now earn far less per hour than their female counterparts. However, tennis players are not paid by the hour and those who play longer or shorter games, sets or matches are not rewarded accordingly.
In 2009, a total of £12,500,000 in prize money was awarded with the singles champions receiving £850,000 each, an increase of 13.3 percent on 2008.
For the 2010 Championships, the total prize money increased to £13,725,000, and the singles champions received £1,000,000 each. For the 2011 Wimbledon Championships it has been announced that the total prize money will be £14,600,000 an increase of 6.4% from 2010. Both male and female singles champions prize money will also increase to £1,100,000, a rise of 10% on the previous year.
Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:BBC Sport Wimbledon Category:July events Category:Recurring sporting events established in 1877 Category:Sport in Merton Category:Sport in the United Kingdom
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
