Wimbledon History
Croquet is actually responsible for tennis. At least at Wimbledon, anyway. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its sporting events at the grounds at Wimbledon, and after major Walter Wingfield brought the sport of lawn tennis tennis on the lawn to England in the late 1800s, the club renamed itself with a moniker to include tennis. With this new names change came other changes too, such as the club creating the first championship for tennis. With the new championship came new rules too. Funnily enough, these rules are the same one we play by today; very few changes have been made to them over the years. The Marylebone Cricket Club made the rules.
The year this championship occurred was in 1877. It was only men’s singles that were played, though back then they were “gentle”men’s signals. With the likes of John McEnroe who some say have disgraced tennis permanently, perhaps it makes sense that we have dropped the gentle part. The people who showed up number in the hundreds (two hundred) and had to pay just a shilling to see the last match.
Other changes occurred throughout the years, including the club taking out croquet from its title with the increasing success of tennis, which years later, made a comeback to the name.
Women were allowed to play rather early on. In 1884 to be precise. The first ever winner of the women’s singles (of course, back then since the men were gentle, the women were actually ladies, so it was really ladies singles) was Maud Watson with her great tennis scores.
Wimbledon is just one of the many places tennis stars stop to make their name or rank themselves higher up, earning them a better standing in their sport. The Australian Open is another tournament where several young stars have made their names throughout the years. Though the Australian Open Tennis Championship has hardly ever waned in popularity, Wimbledon had a little bit of trouble bringing in the crowds during the 1890s, but since then it has been a consistent premiere spot for tennis.
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