Wimbledon (tennis)

The Wimbledon Championships is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. It is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and is regarded by many as the most prestigious. The Championships are unique because they are the only Grand Slam played on a grass court.

It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877.

Simona Haleb at Wimbledon. Pixiebay

HISTORY 

In 1876, lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier, was added to the activities of the All-England Croquet Club at Wimbledon.

In spring 1877, the club was renamed "The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club".

The inaugural Wimbledon Championship was held to raise money for repairs to the club's pony-drawn lawn roller. The competition started on July 9, 1877.

The first Wimbledon Tennis Competition was solely as an amateur competition. Men's singles was the only event that took place. Entrants had to pay a guinea (£1.05) each.

The first Wimbledon tournament featured 22 male tennis players competing for a 12-guinea prize, plus a silver challenge cup valued at 25 guineas.

Just 200 people turn up to the first Wimbledon final at the original venue in Worple Road, paying a shilling each to watch Spencer Gore stroll past William Marshall 6-1, 6–2, 6–4 on July 19, 1877.

Old Harrovian Spencer Gore was heard to remark afterwards: "Lawn tennis is a bit boring. It will never catch on."

Spencer Gore

Spencer Gore was the first player who ever used the technique of volleying, therefore he is considered the creator of the style of volley. He was also a first-class cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club in the mid-1870s.

The first Wimbledon Championship made a profit of £10.

The Wimbledon women's event began seven years later in 1884 with a a field of thirteen competitors. Playing in a white corset and petticoat, 19-year-old Maud Watson defeated her older sister Lilian Watson 6–8, 6–3, 6–3 in the final.

Maud Watson's first prize was a silver flower-basket worth 20 guineas.

Ladies Championship, 1884.

In 1907 Norman Brookes of Australia becomes the first international Wimbledon Men's Singles champion.

King George VI, as Prince Albert, played in 1926 at the All England Championships at Wimbledon in the men's doubles.

At Wimbledon in 1932, the English player Henry “Bunny” Austin became the first to wear shorts at a major championship.

In 1967, BBC Two screened four hours of live Wimbledon tennis as Britain's first color television broadcast.

Wimbledon adopted yellow tennis balls in 1986 with the advent of color television; before that, white balls were used.

RECORDS 

Roger Federer (2003–2007, 2009, 2012, 2017)  holds the record for the most men's singles titles with eight.

Martina Navratilova (1978–1979, 1982–1987, 1990) holds the record for most women's singles titles with nine.

The fastest ever serve at Wimbledon was 148 mph in 2010 by Taylor Dent of the USA in his match against Novak Djokovic.

The loudest known "grunt" came from Maria Sharapova during the 2009 tournament, recorded at about 105 decibels – the equivalent of standing three feet from a motorcycle.

A Miss M.H. de Amorim of Brazil entered the record book for having served 17 consecutive double faults to begin her match at Wimbledon in 1957. She lost.

The oldest ever Men’s Single Champion was Arthur Gore of Great Britain who won the title at the age of 41 in 1909.

At 17 years and 227 days old, Boris Becker was the youngest player (and first unseeded player and first German) to win the men’s singles title.

Mita Klima from Austria is the youngest player to ever compete in the tournament. She was 13 when she lost a first-round match in the 1907 tournament and was never heard from again.

The shortest player ever was Gertrude Hoahing, who stood 4 ft. 9 in. tall.

FUN WIMBLEDON FACTS

An average men's match at Wimbledon takes two-and-a-half hours during which the ball is in play for only 20 minutes.

52,000 balls used are used each year during the two weeks of the Wimbledon tennis championships.

Goran Ivanisevic is the only Wimbledon winner whose name alternates consonants and vowels.

Wimbledon champions have worn a straw hat (M.E.A. Watson, 1884), a cloche hat (Suzanne Lenglen, 1919). an eye shade (Helen Wills Moody, 1927-38), and a white jockey cap (Alice Marble, 1939).

An inscription from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" adorns the doorway through which the players walk onto Centre Court at Wimbledon. It reads "If you can meet with Triumph & Disaster; And treat those two impostors just the same."

In 1998, Yevgeny Kafelnikov's match with Mark Philippoussis was interrupted when a mouse ran onto the court during play.

Source Daily Mail

Serena Williams

EARLY LIFE 

Tennis star Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan on September 26, 1981 to Oracene Price and Richard Williams.

At the 2009 Australian Open By Sascha Wenninger, Melbourne, Australia. 

She is the younger sister of another former world # professional female tennis player, Venus Williams.

When the children were young, the Williams family moved to Compton, California.

She began playing tennis when she was four years old, and was home-schooled by her father, who was also her coach.

In 1998, when they were still teenagers, Venus and Serena Williams made a newsletter called Tennis Monthly Recap where they interviewed famous tennis players.

Venus & Serena Williams at a Pam Shriver event in Baltimore, 1993 By Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com 

TENNIS CAREER 

Serena Williams is regarded by many as the greatest-ever female tennis star. She's captured 23 Grand Slam singles titles to go along with 14 doubles titles alongside her sister Venus Williams.

Her total of 23 Grand Slam singles titles is second on the all-time list behind Margaret Court (24).

She earned her first career grand slam singles title by defeating Martina Hingis in the final match at the 1999 US Open.

Serena and Venus met in the U.S. Open final in 2001. It was the first women's Grand Slam final to be televised in prime time. Bruce Willis, Robert Redford and Spike Lee all attended.

She reached the #1 ranking for the first time on July 8, 2002. On her sixth occasion, Serena held the ranking for 186 consecutive weeks, tying the record set by Steffi Graf.

In 2009, Serena went on a four-match singles losing streak. She blamed the WTA tour's scheduling for her on-court woes.

Williams was the highest paid female sportswoman in 2016 and 2017. In 2017 she was the only woman on Forbes' list of the 100 highest paid athletes with $27 million in prize money and endorsements.

MEDIA 

The Simpsons once featured the Williams sisters in a 2001 episode called "Tennis the Menace." That marked Serena's prime-time TV debut.

Serena has appeared in a number of television shows including: ER, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Bernie Mac Show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, MADtv, Punk'd, and America's Next Top Model.

She voiced Ming the Prison Guard on Avatar: The Last Airbender, after Serena said it was her "favorite show."

Serena Williams made a cameo appearance in the movie Pixels, which starred Adam Sandler and Kevin James and premiered on July 24, 2015. In the movie, Williams plays herself, and she helps the main characters defeat the aliens who are attacking Earth using classic arcade games.

The music video for Beyoncé's Lemonade song "Sorry" features a cameo from Serena Williams. The tennis champion explained to the New York Daily News that she had known the visual's director, Dikayl Rimmasch, since she was nine years old.

She softly recited the lyrics to LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" in a commercial for JP Morgan Chase that debuted at the 2018 US Open tournament.

In 2019, Williams starred in the first-ever Super Bowl ad for Bumble, a dating app in which female users make the first contact with matched male users.

PERSONAL LIFE 

Venus and Serena lived together for 15 years in a 8,500-square-foot mansion in Florida.

Yetunde Price was the oldest half-sister of Venus and Serena Williams. She was a 31-year-old nurse and mother of three children when she was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Compton, California on September 14, 2003.

Price was sitting in a car with her boyfriend, Rolland Wormley, when they were caught in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting. Wormley was also shot, but he survived. Price was pronounced dead at the scene.

The murder of Yetunde Price was a tragedy that had a profound impact on Venus and Serena Williams. They were both very close to their sister, and her death was a huge loss for them. In 2016, the Williams family opened the Yetunde Price Resource Center in Compton, California. The center is a community space that provides services to families and children affected by gun violence.

In 2016, Williams got engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The pair welcomed a daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in September 2017 and married on November 16, 2017 in New Orleans.

Ohanian in 2018. By Web Summit 

Serena had previously been linked romantically to the likes of her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, movie director Brett Ratner, actor/rapper Common and NFL star LaVar Arrington.

She lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States with her husband and daughter.

She was raised a Jehovah's Witness and still follows some practices of the denomination like not celebrating birthdays.

Serena was left fighting for her life in 2011 when she needed surgery after suffering a blood clot in her lung.

Serena can catch a flying ball of gelato in her mouth.

Source Tennis

Tennis player

Wimbledon-born Spencer Gore — the inventor of the volley — won the first-ever Wimbledon tennis final on July 19, 1877. He was also a first-class cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club in the mid 1870s.

Lottie Dod, who won the Wimbledon ladies' singles five times in 1887-1893, was also a golf champion and took silver in 1908 Olympic archery.

Lottie Dod

King George VI of the United Kingdom was an outstanding tennis player. Before he became the British monarch, he played at Wimbledon in the Men's Doubles with Louis Greig in 1926, losing in the first round. 

Don Budge became in 1938 the first amateur player to win the four major tennis events (Australia, France, Great Britain and United States) in a single year.

The one-armed Austrian tennis player Hans Redl played at Wimbledon from 1947 to 1956. He served by tossing the ball up with his racket.

Sally Ride the first American woman to reach outer space, achieved national ranking as a tennis player, but chose not to follow this as a career.

Former Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis was born in Kosice, now in eastern Slovakia but then part of Communist Czechoslovakia, in 1980. She and her mother defected to Switzerland when she was seven.

Martina Hingis at the Roland Garros 2016. By si.robi - Hingis RG16 (10),

Mats Wilander missed only two out of 73 first serves in the entire match when winning the 1988 French Open.

In 1998, teenagers Venus and Serena Williams made a newsletter called Tennis Monthly Recap where they interviewed famous tennis players.

Steffi Graff and Andre Agassi are the only two tennis players to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal. With only their mothers as witnesses, they married on October 22, 2001 at his Las Vegas home. 

Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi (Wimbledon 2009) Wikipedia

Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia is the only player to win the Wimbledon men's singles (in 2001) whose full name is a strict alternation of consonants and vowels. Ivanisevic also has the record for most aces in a single tournament. 

Ivo Karlovic (also of Croatia) holds the record for numbers of tennis aces served in his career (12,936).

On May 9, 2012, Samuel Groth of Australia served an ace recorded at 263 km/h (163.4 mph) during an ATP Challenger event in Busan, South Korea. The serve came during Groth's second-round match against Uladzimir Ignatik (Belarus). It's the fastest ever recorded serve.

With a ball speed of 210 kph (131 mph), Germany's 26-year-old Sabine Lisicki holds the record for the fastest serve in the history of women's tennis.

Rafael Nadal "became" a left-handed tennis player as a child when his uncle who coached him thought it would help give him an advantage on the court.

Maria Sharapova's loudest grunt was measured at 101.2 decibels in Wimbledon in 2005: that's louder than a motorcycle or a lawnmower. In fact it's only five decibels less than a lion's roar.

Tennis Grand Slam Events

The four Grand Slam events, also known as The Majors, are the most important annual tennis tournaments. This is because of the world ranking points players can earn, their tradition, the prize-money, and public and media attention. Each tournament is played over a period of two weeks beginning each year with the Australian Open in mid January, the French Open in May and June, Wimbledon in July, and the US Open in August and September.

Margaret Court Arena at the Australian Open. 

Wimbledon was first competed in 1877. The inaugural Championship started at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London on July 9, 1877 and the Gentlemen's Singles was the only event held. It has been held there ever since.

The first Wimbledon Championship was won by Spencer Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player, from a field of 22. About 200 spectators paid one shilling each to watch the final.

The Wimbledon women's single and the men's doubles events began seven years later in 1884. First prize in the Women's single event, awarded to Maud Watson, was a silver flower-basket worth 20 guineas.

Ladies Championship, 1884

Rhode Island was the cradle of American tennis: when the United States National Championships (now the United States Open) were inaugurated in 1881, they were played on the lawns of the Newport Casino. Richard Sears won the men's singles at this tournament, which was the first of his seven consecutive singles titles. 

Semifinal at the 1890 US Tennis Championships at Newport

Like Wimbledon, the United States Open became known by its location after it was moved to Forest Hills, New York, in 1915.

The French Championships began in 1891. Originally, they were only open to tennis players who were members of French clubs. The first winner was a Briton—H. Briggs—who was a Paris resident.

The French Open opened to non-French players for the first time in 1926.

The Australian Open was first played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne in November 1905. This facility is now known as the Albert Reserve Tennis Centre. 

In 1938 the American, Don Budge became the first male tennis player to complete the Grand Slam in tennis of all four Championships.

Don Budge at the White City Stadium, Sydney in December 1937

The Open Era in tennis begun in 1968, when all the Grand Slam events opened to both amateurs and professionals for the first time.

The US Open led the way in equality: it awarded the men's and women's champions the same prize money in 1973.

The US Open tennis tournament was played on grass until 1975, when clay courts were installed to equalize Grand Slam competition. 

In 1978 US Open moved to hard courts of the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.

Today, the French Open is known for being the only Grand Slam played on a clay court. The Australian and United States tournaments are played on hard courts, and Wimbledon on grass.

Before 1983, many of the best tennis players did not play at the Australian Open. This was because tournament was far away from Europe and North America and was not considered as important as the other Grand Slam tournaments.

Monica Seles and Martina Navratilova contested the 1991 women's US Open final. Their 17-year age gap is the biggest in the history of Grand Slam finalists.

The Australian Open holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event, with 743,667 people attending the 2018 tournament.

Novak Djokovic is the only player to beat Roger Federer in all four Grand Slam events. (Australian Open, French Open, US Open and Wimbledon).

Source Compton's Encyclopaedia

Tennis

Tennis is a racket and ball game invented in England in the late 19th century and referred to as 'lawn tennis.' It derives from real tennis, which originated in France in the 12th century, as does the method of scoring.

Pixiebay

Some authorities link tennis with a game of handball, mentioned explicitly in Homer's writings, as being played by Nausicaa, King Alcinous' daughter, and her personal maid servants in Phaecia where Odysseus was shipwrecked. 

Ancient Egyptians played ball games and passed their enthusiasm on to their successors, the Arabs. The Crusaders introduced the game to Europe which involved hitting a ball around a courtyard with the palm of the hand.  The game was taken up and elaborated in France.

Records confirm that tennis was played in France in the twelfth century, at first in courtyards with the palm of the hand only. Rackets then were still unknown. That is why the logical Frenchman came to call the sport not tennis but "the game of the hand." 

The courtyard game became so popular in medieval French monasteries that the Pope tried to ban it.  

Medieval players of the game wore leather gloves to protect their hands. These evolved into wooden or cork bats covered in leather. The game became popular with royalty and was known as "royal" or "real" tennis. 

Together with court tennis the twelfth-century Crusaders also brought some of its terms to Europe. Thus, racket is derived from the Arab rahat for "the palm of the hand." " Deuce, however, is the Anglicised version of the French à deux (two), implying that two successive points must be gained to win the game.

King Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume ("game of the palm"), which evolved into real tennis, and became notable as the first person to construct indoor tennis courts in the modern style. 

Jeu de paume in the 17th century

Louis X and Charles VIII of France both died as a result of a tennis match. Louis died of exhaustion (and possibly of a poisoned glass of chilled wine drunk after the game).

Charles VIII of France died in 1498 after hitting his head on the door on his way to watch a real tennis match and later fell into a coma and died nine hours later.

It wasn't until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called "tennis", from the French term tenez, which can be translated as "receive!" or "take that!".

King Philip of Austria defeated the Marquis de Dorset in history's first international tennis match in the early sixteenth century. It wasn't much of a contest, since the Marquis still played with the palm of his hand and King Philip used a new fangled "battoir." 

The early practice to ask a servant to deliver the first ball may account for the introduction of the term "service" into tennis. One theory is that as Henry VIII of England grew older and bigger he played less sport and grew unfit. In his last years he found himself out of breath just walking down the stairs.

By the end of his life, Henry was so fat he had to employ someone to serve at his side during games and throw the ball up in the air for him; hence the origin of the term 'serve'. 

The tennis court where Henry VIII of England played Real Tennis, at Hampton Court is still there. Apparently he originated the custom of second serve when he struggled to get his first serve onto the roof. (That's how they played tennis in those days.) 

Peter Stuyvesant of the New Netherlands forbade tennis playing during religious services in 1659. 

In 1873 Major Walter Wingfield created an outdoor game he called "Sphairistike" but it survives to this day as lawn tennis, from the French "tenez." He came up with the idea after playing with a new kind of ball made from of India rubber which had been designed to bounce on grass.

Drawing of a Lawn Tennis court as originally designed by Major Walter Wingfield in 1874

The retired British cavalryman introduced the game at a Christmas party in the gardens of 17th century Nantclwyd Hall, near Ruthin, Wales in 1873. His game was called sphairistike.

The name 'Sphairistike' was rather poor Greek, being a mangling of the Greek for ‘playing ball' . 

Wingfield's game was played on an hour-glass shaped court with a net that was 4ft 8in high. A modern net is 3.5ft at the posts, 3ft in the middle.

Major Walter Wingfield was at heart a salesman and a promoter. The retired army officer drew up a set of rules and, on February 23, 1874, patented his 'sphairistrike' game, which mixed elements of racquets, badminton, and court tennis. Between July 1874 and June 1875, 1,050 of his tennis sets were sold. 

Cover of the first edition of the book about Lawn Tennis by Walter Wingfield, published in February 1874

Wingfield began advertising lawn tennis sets with special balls and bats, shoes with India-rubber soles, and Sphairistike tape measures (for the net). To make it an all-season game, he even suggested it could be played on ice skates.

Rectangular courts were introduced in 1875 by the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon when it decided to add tennis to its repertoire.

The Davis Cup, an annual tennis competition for international male teams, first held in 1900, was named after Harvard student and keen tennis player, Dwight Filley Davis (July 5, 1879 – November 28, 1945).  He bought a trophy made of 217oz of sterling silver and invited male players from Britain to play against the U.S. America won the first tournament. 

Dwight F. Davis

Davis was later the American Assistant Secretary of War from 1923 to 1925 and Secretary of War from 1925 to 1929.

The introduction of cement courts in the municipal parks of southern California was important in dispelling the sport's country-club image in the US. Furthermore, by the 1980s the word lawn had been dropped from the names of all the associations that governed the game. 

Tennis balls used to be white until Sir David Attenborough, when he was Controller of BBC2, realized they'd be hard to follow on color television so the sport created "optic yellow" balls. 

Play Tennis Day is officially observed on February 23rd of every year.

FUN TENNIS FACTS

The 'Golden Slam' of the four tennis Majors and an Olympic Gold in one year has only been achieved once: by Steffi Graf in 1988.

When John Isner of the United States defeated Nicolas Mahut of France, 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–3), 70–68 at Wimbledon, it was the longest match in professional tennis history.  In total, they played for 11 hours and five minutes over three days completing their marathon on June 24, 2010.

The final set of John Isner and Nicholas Mahut's epic match consisted of 138 games over 8 hours and 11 minutes - the longest ever both in time and games.

The ball is only in play for about 20 minutes of an average two-and-a-half-hour tennis match.

Tennis players may run 3 to 5 miles during a five-set match, and in some cases even more. This is at least two times more distance than the most active American Football players in each of their respective matches. 

A tennis court is 23.8m long and 11m wide for doubles matches and 23.8m long and 8.2m wide for singles matches.

Pixiebay

Sources Compton's Encyclopedia, Europress Encyclopedia

Racket

Records confirm that tennis was played in France in the twelfth century, at first with the palm of the hand only. Rackets then were still unknown.

The etymology of the word racket (or racquet), as in tennis, can be traced via the French raquette to the Arab rahat, a colloquial form of raha - the palm of the hand. That is why the logical Frenchman came to call the sport not tennis but "the game of the hand."

These early tennis players soon came to realize that striking the ball with their bare hands could hurt very much. Therefore, to soften the blow, players began to wear gloves. Not only did the glove guard against injury, it gave the ball greater impetus.

All that was further needed was to take off the improved glove and add a handle and strings to it. The first wooden-framed rackets, strung with sheep gut, appeared in the 15th century.

Early advertisement for tennis rackets, from an English newspaper.

Table tennis began, though not under that name, as a parlor game in Victorian homes. The equipment used in those early days was mostly improvised and home-made. The racket or bat was cut out of a piece of thick cardboard. The rubber-covered racket didn't come into play until 1905.

A badminton racket has a longer, thinner neck than a tennis racket with softer strings as the shuttlecock is hit up over a net.

Throughout most of tennis' history, rackets were made of laminated wood. In the late 1960s, Wilson produced the T2000 steel racket with wire wound around the frame to make string loops. It was popularized by the American tennis star Jimmy Connors.

A United States tennis racket from the 1970s

In the early 1980s, "graphite" (carbon fibre) composites were introduced, and other materials were added to the composite, including ceramics, glass-fibre, boron, and titanium. Composite rackets are the contemporary standard, the last wooden racket appeared at Wimbledon in 1987.

Source Europress Encyclopedia

Fred Perry

Fred Perry was born in Stockport, Lancashire, England on May 18, 1909 where his father, Samuel Perry (1877–1954), was a cotton spinner.

TENNIS CAREER

Young Fred first began to play tennis on the public courts near his family's housing estate.

In 1928–29, Perry won several medals in the single, double and team events in the World Table Tennis Championships.

He trained with Arsenal Football Club in the 1930s to focus on his fitness, a highly unusual move at a time when few players bothered to train in that way.

Perry won the Wimbledon men's title three times in succession between 1934 and 1936. His final triumph was a 6–1, 6–1, 6–0 victory over the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm which lasted less than 45 minutes. It became the quickest final in the 20th century and the second shortest of all time.

Prior to Andy Murray in 2013, Perry was the last British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship, in 1936. Perry’s prize money for winning Wimbledon in 1936, then still an amateur event, was £10 – or £640 ($800) in today’s money.

Perry was ranked World No 1 for three years. He also won the Australian and French Opens once each and the US Open three times.

After three years as the world No. 1 tennis amateur player, Perry turned professional in late 1936 after his friend, comedian Harpo Marx, told him: "You can’t buy groceries with glory."

Perry made his professional debut on January 6, 1937 at New York City's Madison Square Garden against the best professional player, Ellsworth Vines and immediately began to make thousands of pounds.

Perry would not shake anyone’s hand before a match because he feared he would lose the feeling in his fingers if he did.

He was unafraid to inflict "psychological warfare" on his opponents. Perry used the tactic of saying ‘very clevah’ after an opponent’s shot – which is said to have annoyed some competitors so much they were tempted to walk off court.

Perry often leapt over the net after winning to prove he still had energy to spare.

POST TENNIS CAREER

In the late 1940s, Perry was approached by Tibby Wegner, an Austrian footballer who had invented an antiperspirant device worn around the wrist. Perry made a few changes to create the first sweatband.

Wegner's next idea was to produce a sports shirt, which was to be made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves. Perry launched his famous polo shirt at Wimbledon in 1952 and it was an immediate success. The laurel logo was based on the old Wimbledon symbol and unlike other logos it was stitched into the shirt.

The classic Fred Perry design. By stylecountz - Fred Perry 8-11 005, Wikipedia

The white tennis shirt was supplemented in the late 1950s with colored versions for table tennis in which white shirts are not allowed. These became popular in the 1960s as a symbol of mod culture.

PERSONAL LIFE

Away from the court Perry was a keen dancer who loved jazz and dance tunes.

He had a weakness for chocolates and boiled sweets – and claimed the reason he smoked a pipe was to stop him over-indulging in confectionery.

Perry was one of the leading bachelors of the 1930s and his off-court romances were sensationalized in the world press. Perry had a romantic relationship with the actress Marlene Dietrich and was also known for conducting affairs with Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, and Loretta Young.

He married four times, first to American movie star Helen Vinson between 1935-1940, then briefly to model Sandra Breaux and Lorraine Walsh, and finally to Barbara Riese in 1952. This last marriage lasted more than 40 years until he died.

Fred Perry died at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne, Australia on February 2, 1995, aged 85, after breaking his ribs following a fall in a hotel bathroom.

A statue of Fred Perry at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon. By Matthewmayer 

Sources Daily Express, BBC.co.uk

Rafael Nadal

EARLY LIFE 

Rafael Nadal Parera was born June 3, 1986 in Manacor, Majorca, Spain.

His father Sebastián Nadal is a businessman who as well as owning Majorca-based insurance and glass and window companies, manages his own restaurant on the island, Sa Punta.

Rafael first began playing tennis at the age of three under the guidance of his uncle Tom, a former professional tennis player.

Rafael was born right-handed. He played two-handed on both sides as a small child and then with a one-handed forehand with his natural right arm. At the age of 9 or 10, his uncle switched him to a left-handed forehand and serve after seeing his perfect backhand moves.

At the age of 12 Rafael was introduced to French tennis player Richard Gasquet and has known him ever since.

TENNIS CAREER 

Rafael Nadal is nicknamed 'The King of Clay'. Many people consider him to have been the greatest ever tennis player on clay courts.

Nadal playing on clay. By Lijian Zhang - originally posted to Flickr. Wikipedia Commons

He has won 17 Grand Slam singles titles; eleven at the French Open, three at the US Open, two at Wimbledon and one at the Australian Open.

Nadal has won 32 ATP Masters Series titles, a former record, and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles.

As part of the Spain Davis Cup team, Nadal has won the cup four times, in 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2011.

PERSONAL LIFE

Though he is from Mallorca, Real Madrid is his favourite football club.

Rafa Nadal at the IMG@23 Players' Party at Crown in 2015. By Tourism Victoria from Australia - Wikipedia

Another uncle named Miguel was a footballer who played for Spain for over a decade. He also played for clubs such as RCD Mallorca and FC Barcelona.

He once beat retired Brazilian footballer Ronaldo in a charity poker match. Nadal’s win earned him $50,000 (£35,000) for his Rafa Nadal Foundation.

Nadal was raised a Catholic, but now calls himself an agnostic.

He is so superstitious that he is known to not let anyone move his water bottle from where he places it at the beginning of a tennis match.

His girlfriend Maria Francisca Perello was introduced to him by his sister, Maria Isabel.

He co-starred in the video for Shakira's song "Gypsy" playing the Columbian singer's love interest.

Source Mid-day.com

Roger Federer

Roger Federer was born at the Basel Cantonal Hospital in Basel, Switzerland on August 8, 1981.

His father, Robert Federer, is Swiss and his mother, Lynette Federer (born Durand), is a South African whose ancestors were Dutch and French Huguenots. Roger Federer holds both Swiss and South African citizenship.

Federer peaks Swiss German, Standard German, English and French fluently, Swiss German is his native language.

Federer was raised as a Roman Catholic and met Pope Benedict XVI while playing the 2006 Internazionali BNL d'Italia tournament in Rome.

Like all male Swiss citizens, Federer was subject to compulsory military service in the Swiss Armed Forces. However, in 2003 he was deemed unfit because of a long-standing back problem and was subsequently not required to fulfill his military obligation.

Federer met former Women's Tennis Association player Mirka Vavrinec when both were competing for Switzerland in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They were married at Wenkenhof Villa in Riehen near Basel on April 11, 2009.

On 23 July 2009, Mirka gave birth to identical twin girls, Myla Rose and Charlene Riva. On May 6, 2014. the Federers had another set of twins, this time boys whom they named Leo and Lennart, called Lenny.

After winning his first-ever Wimbledon title, Federer was gifted a milking cow, which he named ‘Juliette’.

By Sirquine - Own work, CC BY 3.0, $3

Federer became the #1 ranked men's singles player on February 2, 2004, a position he would hold for a then-record 237 weeks. The record is now held by Novak Djokovic with 428 weeks.

In 2009 Federer won a then-record 15th Grand Slam title in tennis, when he beat Andy Roddick at Wimbledon.

On December 12, 2004, Jesus Aparicio – a huge Federer fan – was seriously injured in a car crash. The accident would leave him in a coma, one he’d remain in for nearly 11 years. When he woke up in August 2015, he was shocked to learn that Roger Federer was still among the best in the world.

Federer won a record eighth Wimbledon title and 19th Grand Slam a few weeks before his 36th birthday on July 16, 2017. Statistically, the 2017 season was his best since 2007.

Roger Federer was the first living person to be celebrated on a coin in Switzerland. The government  produced a 20 franc silver coin with the 20-time Grand Slam champion's face on it in January 2020.

Boris Becker

Boris Becker was born on November 22, 1967 in Leimen, Germany, the only son of Elvira and Karl-Heinz Becker. 

Boris Becker’s father Karl-Heinz, an architect, designed the tennis center where Becker learned to play the game. 

He and Steffi Graf played against each other in training matches as children.

Boris Becker became the first unseeded player to win the Wimbledon's men's singles title in 1985.

Becker is also the youngest men's Wimbledon champ in history (at age 17 years, 7 months).

The German tennis star went on to win 49 singles titles and 15 doubles titles. His Grand Slam singles titles comprise three Wimbledon Championships, two Australian Opens and one US Open.

Becker in 1994 By Flickr-User mandj98 

Becker left his £200,000 for winning Wimbledon in 1989 in his tracksuit bottoms - only for his mother to wash them, destroying the check. He had to go back and ask for another one.

Since his playing career ended, Becker has engaged in numerous ventures, including coaching Novak Djokovic for three years, a commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon, and appearing in the European Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour. 

Becker was married to Barbara Feltis from 1993 to 2001 and on June 12, 2009, he married Dutch model Lilly Kerssenberg in St Moritz, Switzerland. In May 2018, Lilly and Becker announced that they had separated after nine years of marriage. 

He has four children named Anna, Elias, Noah and Amadeus. Becker famously fathered Anna with Russian waitress Angela Ermakova in the broom cupboard of a London restaurant while his first wife was pregnant with their second child. 

On June 21, 2017, Becker was declared bankrupt by the Bankruptcy and Companies Court in London. Becker was legally charged with hiding millions of dollars in assets. including failing to hand over trophies in satisfaction of his debt during his bankruptcy, He was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act. and on April 29, 2022, Becker was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for the offences. 

Australian Open (Tennis)

The Australian Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. It is held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne, Australia.

The tournament was first held at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne as the Australasian Championships in 1905. Rodney Heath beat fellow Australian Albert Curtis in that first final.

The tournament was staged twice in New Zealand in its early days, in Christchurch in 1906 and Hastings in 1912.

It became the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969.

When the event began in the early 20th century, the trip by ship from Europe or America to Australia took more than a month, so play was largely limited to Australians and New Zealanders.

Even after the advent of jet travel, dates around the Christmas holidays and low prize money kept many players away. Bjorn Borg only played the Australian Open once.

Over time, prize money and ranking points increased. The tournament shifted to the third and fourth weeks of January.

The Rod Laver arena was the first in Australia to have a retractable roof installed. The retractable roof was a big attraction in 1988. According to its designers, the point was to allow the stadium to host concerts and sports in all seasons.

Interior of Rod Laver Arena with the original Rebound Ace surface. By pfctdayelise

The Melbourne Arena and the refurbished Margaret Court Arena are now also equipped with retractable roofs helping the Australian Open make the transition into one of the grander of tennis’s four Grand Slam events.

796, 435 people attended the 2019 Australian Open, making it the highest attended Grand Slam event in tennis.

Five Australian cities have hosted the event: Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne, its home since 1972.

Novak Djokovic has won the men’s singles title a record ten times.

Novak Djokovic  By IvanAndreevich 

Margaret Court, the Australian great who has an arena named after her at Melbourne Park, holds the record in the women's event, with eleven wins.

British player Andy Murray has lost a record five times in the final.

Source New York Times

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Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi's father represented Iran in boxing in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics.

Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi were the first two players in tennis history to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal. With only their mothers as witnesses, they married on October 22, 2001 at his Las Vegas home.

Agassi was first married between 1997-1999 to actress Brooke Shields.

He smashed his Wimbledon trophy and all of his tennis awards in a fit of jealousy rage after witnessing on the set of Friends his then-girlfriend Brooke Shields kissing Mat Le Blanc for an episode of the series. The scene, shot in 1995, made Agassi storm off the set.

Agassi admitted in 2009 that his long hair in the Nineties was a wig and his obsession with it not falling off lost him his first Grand Slam final at the French Open in 1990. He said: "During the warming-up I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off."

Agassi played a Davis Cup match in 1992 wearing a pair of Oakley sunglasses to hide the fact that he was hungover from the previous night's drinking. Jim Jannard of Oakley then sent him a new Dodge Viper to thank him for the endorsement.

Andre Agassi has dedicated his post tennis career to education for children, starting his own foundation and investing in the award-winning educational technology company Square Panda.