Wimbledon Trivia & Records

The Wimbledon Championships has, over the years, produced the very best in tennis. Records have been set by legends, and broken by legends, and we give you a brief overview of Wimbledon Championships trivia & records..

• Martina Hingis is the youngest Wimbledon ladies’ champion of the 20^th century.
• Wimbledon champion, Serena Williams has never lost a first round match in a Grand Slam tournament, neither has Serb, Ana Ivanovic.
• The legendary Martina Navratilova won the most ladies’ singles at Wimbledon, with nine.
• Wimbledon 2008 saw the longest men’s singles final in history in a legendary match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, the match lasted 4 hours and 48 mins with Nadal winning 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7.
• The longest Wimbledon men’s singles match took place in 1969 between Pancho Gonzalesz and Charlie Pasarell. It lasted a marathon 112 games and the final score, in favour of Gonzalesz was 22-24, 11-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9. It obviously took place before the tiebreak was introduced!
• In 1931 Lili de Alvarez was the first women to wear shorts on court at the Wimbledon Championships – causing quite a stir.
• Jean Borotra of France had the longest career at the Wimbledon Championships, spanning an incredible 55 years! He competed in the men’s singles 35 times between 1922 and 1964, then in the veteran’s men’s doubles from 1965 – 1977.
• Goran Ivanisevic became the first wild card entrant to win the tournament in 2002.
• Wimbledon ladies’ champion, Martina Navratilova, won the most matches with 326.
• Chris Evert has the unenviable record of losing the most finals with seven losses.
• Current world number one, Roger Federer holds the record of 65 consecutive grass court victories after beating previous record holder Bjorn Borg.
• Rafael Nadal holds the record of 81 victories on a clay court
• Ball girls were first employed at Wimbledon in 1977.
• Yellow balls were introduced in 1986.
• 1987 was the last year in which wooden tennis rackets were used at the All England Club.
• In 2001 the men’s singles final was contested on a Monday for only the third time in Wimbledon’s long history. The other two ‘People’s Monday’ occurred in 1919 and 1922.
• In 2000 the great Pete Sampras equaled Willie Renshaw’s record of seven Wimbledon men’s singles crowns.
• In 1985 Boris Becker became the first unseeded player, the youngest player and the first German player ever to win the men’s singles in London. He was 17 years and 227 days old.
• American super-athlete, Billie Jean King, holds the record, together with Martina Navratilova, for the most Wimbledon titles, with an awesome 20