Wimbledon Facts

The All England Club are SET to SERVE up another ACE competition as Wimbledon starts today (1 July) and runs until Sunday 14 July! We’ve pulled together some FAULT free Wimbledon facts that’ll HIT that SWEETSPOT…

• The first Wimbledon championship took place in 1877, making it the oldest tennis tournament in the world.
• Wimbledon is one of four tennis Grand Slam events held each year.
• Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event to be played on grass courts.
• The grass is cut to a height of exactly 8 mm.
• 675 matches take place during the fortnight.
• Wimbledon rules state that all players must be dressed almost entirely in white. – Umpires can ask a player to change if they don’t meet the dress code.

• 54,250 balls are used and are replaced after every seven to nine games to make sure they’re in perfect shape throughout the match.
• Balls not in use are even stored in a refrigerated container to keep them in tip-top condition at exactly 68°F.
• The balls used to be white, they were replaced with the Yellow balls we know today to make them more visible to TV cameras.
• About 250 ball boys and girls are used throughout the tournament. Its takes months to train to be a ball boy/girl including some intense training sessions and over 1000 applications are received each year.
• Champions receive a 3/4-size replica of their trophy.
• The longest match ever took 11 hours and 5 minutes to complete over the course of three days!
• The record for fastest men’s serve at Wimbledon belongs to US player Taylor Dent, whose ball hit 147mph.
• Venus Williams holds the record for the fastest women’s serve after smashing a tennis ball about 125mph.
• The loudest known grunt during Wimbledon came from Russia’s Maria Sharapova in 2009. It reached about 105 decibels – the equivalent of standing beside an accelerating motorcycle!
• 39,000 spectators in the grounds at any one time.
• With the roof closed, Centre court would hold 290 million tennis balls
• 7,500 Wimbledon umbrellas would be needed to cover the same area as the retractable roof.

• 166,055 portions of Strawberries & Cream are served each year.
• 17,170 portions of Fish & Chips
• The players eat 2,195kg of Bananas
• 21,917 bottles of Champagne
• 303,277 glasses of Pimm’s!
• Over 700 litres of dairy cream are used each day
• Over 2000 afternoon tea hampers are sold during the two weeks.