5th July: Wimbledon

The Wimbledon Championships are drawing to a close, so before they do, here are 10 things you might not know about Wimbledon:

1. The first Wimbledon was in 1877. At that time, it was a men's singles championship only (the women's competition was introduced in 1884). 22 players took part, and there were just 200 spectators who had paid the princely sum of one shilling (5p) for their tickets. The first winner was Spencer Gore, who beat William Marshall in the final.
2. The Wimbledon Tennis Club has a resident hawk, Rufus, who visits about once a week throughout the year to frighten Pigeons away. During the tournament, he visits every day and flies around for an hour before the gates open.
3. Wimbledon has a lot of balls. 54,250, to be exact. This is the number which is used during the championships. They are stored at a regulation 68 degrees F, and are replaced after every 9 games. Since 1986, the balls have been yellow. After use the balls are either sold to other tennis clubs, or spectators can buy a pack of three for £2.50. Of ball boys and girls, there are 250, chosen from about 750 applicants from all over the world.
4. During the championships, the audience will consume 300,000 cups of Tea and Coffee, 250,000 bottles of Water, 200,000 glasses of Pimm's, 190,000 Sandwiches, 135,000 Ice creams, 100,000 pints of draught Beer and Lager, 32,000 portions of fish and chips, 25,000 bottles of Champagne, 15,000 Bananas 28,000 kg, 12,000 kg of poached salmon and smoked Salmon, and of course, (112,000 punnets) of English Strawberries and 7,000 litres of dairy cream, served up by around 1800 catering staff. Wimbledon is the largest single annual sporting catering operation in Europe.
5. The longest match ever was between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut in 2010. It lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes and was played out over three days. The shortest match ever played in Wimbledon history was the 1881 final in which William Renshaw defeated John Hartley in just 37 minutes.
6. Martina Navratilova has won the Wimbledon Women Singles title a record 9 times. If you count her performances in doubles matches, too, she has a record 20 titles, as does Billie Jean King. Willie Renshaw and Pete Sampras jointly hold the record of winning the Wimbledon Men Singles 7 times. Renshaw won it six times in a row from 1881-86.
7. Martina Hingis became the youngest player to win a Wimbledon title, at the age of 15 years, 282 days, by winning doubles championship in 1996. The youngest male winner was Boris Becker at the age of 17 years, 227 days in 1985. At the same time, he became the first German to win, and the first unseeded player to win.
8. No married woman has won the Wimbledon Singles Championship since 1981, when Chris Evert Lloyd did it.
9. The first player to be disqualified was Tim Henman in 1995, when he hit a ball in anger which happened to strike a ball girl.
10. The grass on the courts is mowed to a height of exactly 8mm.