The Origin of Wimbledon

For more than one hundred years, the Championships at Wimbledon have been the center of the tennis world. Held at the All England Club, Wimbledon offers large purses and spectacular trophies; however, the tennis world's premiere event has risen above its humble origins, which was to raise money to fix a broken lawn roller.

The All England Croquet Club

Croquet was the popular sport in Great Britain. As a result, the All England Croquet Club was formed in 1868 in an outer suburb of London, called Wimbledon. The Club boasted plush lawns and acres of sport.

As croquet continued to be popular, Welsh inventor Major Walter Clopton Wingsfield developed a new sport that could be played on lawns called "sphairistike." Wingsfield patented balls, nets and the like. He also modeled his game after the ancient Greek passtime of ball play.

By 1875, Wingsfield sport, renamed lawn tennis, was played at the All England Croquet Club and was growing to be more popular than croquet. In the spring of 1877, the All England Club changed its name as acknowledgement of its members' new passion, lawn tennis. In that same year, the Club held the first Lawn Tennis Championship.

The First Wimbledon, Championships

The acres of the All England Club's lawns required strict maintenance and in 1877, one of its horse drawn lawn rollers needed to be fixed. Given the growing popularity of lawn tennis, the men of the All England Club envisioned having a tournament to raise funds to fix the much needed roller.

Notices were sent out. The Club had meager stands built and the rounds for a "Gentlemen's Singles" event were set. Instead of the mere 30 that had been predicted, more than 200 people came, paying one shilling, to watch the event.

With several days of play planned and a break for the Eton and Harrow schools cricket match, the first Championships were played on a Monday in July 1877. The final matchup pitted W. Spencer Gore against C. G. Heathcote. Gore won decisively in 48 minutes. His prize was 12 guineas and a silver cup. However, Gore had doubts about lawn tennis and exclaimed that "[l]awn tennis will never rank among our great games."

The Rise of Wimbledon Tennis

The tournament was a success and as such the All England Club decided to hold the tournament annually. In 1884, the Ladies' Singles Championships and Men's Doubles were added to the tournament.

As the popularity of Wimbledon increased, fans grew and the stands were expanded and improved. By 1905, May Sutton of the United States was the first non-European to win. It wasn't until the 1950s that Althea Gibson and Angela Buxton were the first Black and Jew, respectively, to win the prestigious Championships. The youngest man to win was still adolescent and unseeded Boris Becker and youngest female champion was Martina Hingis, when she shared the doubles title in 1996 with Helena Sukova.

Today, there are more than mere lawns at the All England Club. There are 19 tournament courts, 16 other grass courts, which serve as competitors' practice courts as well as five red shale courts, three Continental clay courts, one American clay court, and five indoor courts. The crowd has gone from 200 to 500,000 in the stands and with millions more viewing through Internet, radio and television.. And, the prize has risen from 12 guineas to one million pounds. Instead of a 50 guinea sterling silver cup, today's winners and runners up receive a silver gilt cup or Venus Rosewater silver plate.

Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world. Beginning as a fundraiser, the tournament has become the most prestigious tennis tournament today. And, Wimbledon's first winner has been proven wrong by the very courts he played upon. The sport, as well as the tournament, has grown into one of the greatest in the world.

For information on Wimbledon and its history, check out the following websites:

http://www.historyoftennis.net/history_of_wimbledon.html

http://www.docsports.com/wimbledon-trophy.html

http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/history/index.html