Wimbledon History
History - Important Facts - Records - Winners - Calendars 2009
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, is a private Club founded in 1868 originally as 'The All England Croquet Club' and it was first situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon.
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield introduced the game of tennis in 1875 which was originally called 'Sphairistike'. In the spring of 1877 the Club was renamed 'The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club' then it was known as the first Lawn Tennis Championship. During this time, the basic game laws were created and these have been kept very similar except for details such as the height of the net and posts and the distance of the service line from the net.
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, it was restored in 1899 and since then the title has remained 'The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club'.
The Ladies' Singles was inaugurated in 1884 and Maud Watson became the female champion. That same year, the Gentlemen's Doubles started. As the popularity of Wimbledon continued to increase, the facilities for spectators were suitably improved. Permanent stands gradually took the place of temporary accommodation as by the mid-1880s crowds flocked to see the prowess of British twins, Ernest and William Renshaw who won 13 titles between 1881 and 1889.
By the beginning of the century, Wimbledon had assumed an international character and in 1905, May Sutton of the United States became the first Champion from overseas when she won the Ladies' Singles. She repeated her success in 1907, the year when Norman Brookes of Australia became the first Gentlemen's Singles champion from overseas. Since that year, only two players from Great Britain, Arthur Gore and Fred Perry, have managed to win the Men's Singles. Anthony Wilding of New Zealand became champion from 1910-1913.
The facilities at Worple Road were expanded to meet the ever growing demand of the public and they planned a move to larger premises. This was not achieved until the foresight of building the present stadium designed to hold 14,000 people, fact that made the game known worldwide.
The new ground was financed partially from the accumulated reserves of the Club and partly by the issue of Debentures. The move to Church Road coincided with a break in tradition, whereby the Challenge Round was abolished in favor of the holder playing through each round.
During the 1920s, France produced at least one singles champion, starting with Suzanne Lenglen's reign, Jean Borota, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste. Britain's Kitty McKane won the Ladies' Singles in 1924 and 1926 and a year later Helen Wills of the United States stated her conquest.
Wimbledon continued to thrive in the thirties. Bill Tilden returned at the age of 38 to gain his third crown and in 1931 Cilly Assem registered Germany's first win in the Ladies' Singles. The following year over 200,000 spectators were present for the first time.
The years from 1934 to 1937 were a golden era for British tennis, when a total of 11 titles were captured, including three singles in succession by Fred Perry and two by Dorothy Round. The American tennis players were dominant during the fifties. Outstanding among an array of Champions were Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Tony Trabert, Louise Brough, Maureen Connolly and Althea Gibson, the first black winner.
From 1956 until the early 1970s, the Gentlemen's Singles was virtually the property of Australia and Lew Hoad, Neale Fraser, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and John Newcombe became household names. The sequence of American wins in the Ladies' Singles was not broken until 1959 when Maria Bueno of Brazil triumphed.
The expansion of air travel in the 1950s meant more and more overseas players were competing at Wimbledon and other tournaments throughout the world. In August 1967 an invitation tournament sponsored by the BBC to mark the introduction of color television was held on the Centre Court with eight players taking part - all professionals. Most of these players had won honours at Wimbledon in their amateur days but had forfeited the right to play there on turning professional.
1973 was a sad year for Wimbledon as 81 members of the Association of Tennis Professionals boycotted the meeting following the suspension earlier in the year of Nikki Pilic by the Yugoslavian Lawn Tennis Association. Despite the absence of so many players, attendance reached over 300,000.
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