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The History of Wimbledon

Wimbledon is one of the oldest tennis tournaments still in existence, and it has a fascinating history full of celebrations, upsets and drama.

Here are some of the key events in the history of the All England Championships:

1877: The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, based off Worple Road in Wimbledon, introduced the first Lawn Tennis Championships. Only Gentlemen's Singles matches were played, and the event was won by Spencer Gore. The final attracted an audience of 200 people.

1884: The event was expanded to include a Ladies' Singles Championship (won by Maud Watson) and Gentlemen's Doubles Championship (won by the popular British twins Ernest and William Renshaw, who dominated both the singles and doubles championships until 1889).

1905: This year was significant because it produced the first overseas champion in the form of American Ladies' Singles winner Mary Sutton.

1907: This year's championship produced the first non-British winner of the Men's Singles event when it was won by Norman Brookes of Australia.

1919: By this year, the All England Championships had become so popular that the organisers had to begin to restrict the number of players that could enter. Although players nominated for the championship by their national tennis associations were accepted straight away, applications for self-nominated players were passed through to a Sub-Committee who decided whether or not each player would be accepted into the tournament.

1922: An important year in the history of Wimbledon for two reasons.

Firstly, The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club moved to new premises at Church Road in Wimbledon, London. The new site was designed to hold 14,000 spectators and was opened by King George V. Wimbledon is still held at this site today.

Secondly, the format of the All England Championship changed dramatically with the abolition of the Challenge Round. This meant that the previous year's champions had to play through the rounds in the same way as all other players if they wished to defend their titles.

1924: A significant development took place at this year's Wimbledon event when a simple seeding system was introduced based on ability and nationality.

1925: In this year there was an important alteration made to the qualifying procedure. A qualifying event was introduced for British tennis players hoping to compete at Wimbledon. The event was held at the Roehampton Club in London and took place a week prior to The All England Championship itself. The event was split into two competitions, one for players from the North of the country and one for players from the South of the country.

1927: This year saw the introduction of a full seeding system, which was based purely on a player's ability rather than on their nationality as well. The seeding system has been an important guideline for gamblers wishing to place bets on Wimbledon.

1936: British tennis legend Fred Perry took the Men's Singles title for the third successive year in 1936. No other British player has won the title since Perry, who beat German player Gottfried Von Cramm in straight sets (6-1, 6-1, 6-0).

1938: Don Budge won the Wimbledon Men's Singles title this year, and also made history by becoming the first player to achieve the tennis Grand Slam.

1966: The split between the players from the north and the south of Britain in the Qualifying Competition for Wimbledon was abolished so that all players competed in the same event.

1967: This was one of the most important years in the history of the All England Tennis Championship. The Lawn Tennis Association voted to make Wimbledon, together with other British tennis tournaments, open to all players. Previously, Wimbledon had been restricted to amateurs. The idea of making the event an Open Championship had been consistently rejected from the time it was first proposed in 1959, so this was a major turning point in the development of the Championships.

1968: The first Wimbledon Open Championship took place this year. Rod Laver won the Men's Singles and Billie-Jean King took the Women's Singles title.

1971: This was a significant year in Wimbledon history as tiebreaks were introduced. The tiebreak would be played if players reached the point where the score was 8 games all in a set

1973: A major upset occurred this year when 81 members of the Association of Tennis Professionals boycotted Wimbledon in reaction to the Yugoslavian Lawn Tennis Association's suspension of Nikki Pilic for his refusal to play in a Davis Cup match earlier in the year.

1975: As from this year, Wimbledon seeding became based on the players' computer rankings.

1977: An important year in the history of Wimbledon. In this year, the wild card system was introduced, allowing players that would not have qualified automatically on the basis of their current ranking, but either have performed well at Wimbledon in the past or would attract audience interest for some other reason, to qualify for the championship without needing to compete in the qualifying competition.

This was also Wimbledon's centenary year, and it was marked in style when Virginia Wade took the Ladies' Singles title for Great Britain. Wade was the first British player to win the Ladies' Singles Championship since 1961, and no other British player has managed to take either the Men's or Ladies' Singles title since then.

1979: A further development, which helped to reduce the length of the matches and increase excitement in the Wimbledon Championships, occurred this year when it was decided to introduce tiebreaks at six games all rather than at eight games all.

1980: Swedish tennis legend Bjorn Borg became the first player since the 1880s to win the Men's Singles title five times in a row. He beat John McEnroe 1-6, 7-4, 6-3, 6-7, 8-6. The highlight of the match was the 22-minute tiebreak in the fourth set, which kept the audience on the edges of their seats.

1985: Boris Becker set three records when he beat Kevin Curren in the Men's Singles Final 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4. He became the first unseeded player, the first German player and the youngest ever player to win the Wimbledon Men's Singles title.

1987: Martina Navratilova set a record this year when she became the first person to win the Ladies' Singles title six times in a row. Navratilova beat Steffi Graf 7-5, 6-3 to retain her title.

1990: Martina Navratilova set an all-time record when she won her ninth Wimbledon Ladies' Singles title, beating Zina Garrison in straight sets 6-4, 6-1..

2001: The Men's Singles title was won by a wild card player for the first time in the history of Wimbledon. Goran Ivanisevic from Croatia beat Australian Pat Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 to take the title.

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