Episode 13 - The Wimbledon Championships

You entered the ballot. Of course you did. And of course, you didn't get in. So you pack a tent, set off at dawn, and join the pilgrimage to South West London. By sunset, you're pitched up along the fence, nestled into the great British tradition that is the queue. At dawn, you shuffle forward, bleary -eyed but buzzing. And somehow, you land one of the last tickets to a show court. And then, you're in. Through the main gates and into a world of pristine lawns, manicured flower beds

and quiet prestige. There's a hum in the air, a sense of occasion you can feel in your chest. You meander past Henman Hill, pause at the so -called Champion's Graveyard and queue again, obviously, for your strawberries and cream. Too early for Pimms? Maybe, but it seems rude not to. You take your seat. The sun is out, the roof is open, the grass is untouched, the lines are crisp. It feels like home. And then the tennis begins. The world's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Athletes, artists, warriors, locked in the noble pursuit of immortality. One by one knocked out until only the very best remain, standing beneath a glorious gold cup or lifting a majestic silver plate high. Its charm is incomparable. Its attraction is unique. It is the Wimbledon Championships. And this is... The Sporting Almanac Podcast. Good morning, Jack. A morning recording session.

Yeah, another one. Trying to avoid the heat of the midday sun because it is already very, very warm here and it's only going to get warmer in the United Kingdom. It's boiling hot, which is why I feel so grim. And apologies to anyone if my voice sounds a little hoarse. I am nursing a hangover having been at Headingley for the first day of the test match between England and India yesterday. where England are getting their arses handed to themselves. It happens from time

to time. It's a long old series. But... Could go either way. But, Jack, the start of Test Match Summer and other major established sporting events like the British Grand Prix on the horizon and the focus of today's episode, the British Sporting

Summer, has begun. You described it last week at the end as being like... embraced warmly by your culture and i think that is such an excellent way to describe the wimbledon championships it is the most quintessentially british thing but i think it's also brilliant because it links like every all the all the class distinctions you have in britain the upper class the working class middle classes i think it just bridges that line between everyone it is quite a prim

and proper event but it's open to everyone everyone can go visit everyone can get the strawberries and cream it's british it's britain encapsulated in a single place for two weeks and i love it wimbledon yeah bbc big screens in the city everything's white flowers people queuing properly like yeah yeah you want to learn how to queue go to wimbledon it's home it's home it is home and it's always brilliant it's always fantastic from a sporting point of view as well as everything else and

it has a lot of history behind it does have a lot of everything we love it's the oldest tennis tournament in the world it has that much history behind it yeah it barely it barely uh is predated by the sport of lawn tennis itself um which i'll come to in a sec it was very very quick why don't you come to it now tell us about it come to it now yeah so i really like the way tennis came about because obviously we've talked a lot about british invented sports specifically football

and rugby where they came from and that is largely they were played at public schools they're all team sports and then tennis is obviously not that tennis now is the most watched non -team sport in the world notwithstanding the fact it can obviously be played in doubles or team events like the davis cup it's the fourth most watched and the sixth most played sport on the planet it's very different in its roots compared to other sports i did not know that i didn't know

it was that popular that's that's it's so popular yeah badminton is played a little more because obviously it's played very heavily in china which has a ludicrously massive population distorts the stats yeah yeah it's it's the fourth most watched sport in the world that's incredible yeah it is so one similarity between the invention of tennis and other sports was in the late 19th century people had a lot more spare time than they used to obviously with the empire the british

empire as affluent as it was and a lot of expendable income in the United Kingdom and a growing middle class as well. People had more spare time and a desire to fill it with fun new sports and games. So tennis itself has some precursors. The game of fives, which is like squash played without

a racket, so you play with your hands. Similar sports have been played back to Roman times, and a early version was definitely played, similar sports were thought to have been played back to Roman times, I should say, but the earliest definitely played version was played in the 12th century by monks in France, which was called

Jeux de Palme, the Game of the Palm. appropriately named yeah next up came the sport of real tennis which is a very similar sport to modern day tennis but played indoors over a net where the walls and floors are both used there's big links between that and aristocracy henry day famously played it there's still a court at hampton court and there's many in paris uh it was very popular amongst the french aristocracy until That was brought to an end and actually played a notable

part in the French Revolution when a real tennis court at Versailles hosted what was known as the Tennis Court Oath, where members of the Third Estate, who represent the common people of France, vowed to remain united until they gained a constitution in their country, which was the first time French citizens had openly opposed the monarchy. Three and a half weeks later, the Bastille was stormed and the French Revolution began. I was going to say, how did that go? Yep. So... Similar sports

also, rackets and squash. Rackets and squash are very similar, just the ball and the racket are slightly different to one another. Rackets was a sport invented in debtors' prisons in London, obviously opposed to real tennis, which was linked heavily with royalty. So yeah, people had a lot more time on their hands. The invention of the lawnmower in 1830 meant that a lot of their recreation took part on their lovely lush lawns at manor

houses out in the countryside. From the 1850s through to the 1860s, the big thing was croquet. Croquet people were obsessed with. If anyone doesn't know what croquet is, you play with a mallet and a ball. Boss game. Yeah, it's very fun trying to hit between targets in the ground and then try and hit a middle spike. It was a good game for men and women to play together.

At this point, women were discouraged from playing any sports with any amount of physicality, so they were allowed to do things like archery, croquet, horse riding, which were deemed to not be... too physical but anything beyond that horse riding i know but they had to they had to sit side saddle and stuff yeah that was once a time anyway sorry conservative victorian etiquette you could do a whole episode on it it's weird isn't it we always mention that this is like

the juxtaposition whatever it is with the victorians like the brothers and sisters of the victorian era are basically responsible for every modern day sport but we're also left a lot to be desired in terms of how they were run and their other wider conduct. It's very interesting from a historical point of view, but yeah, I mean, women had very little power at this point, very little opportunity to even do recreation in the same way as men.

We've already talked about what happened during the First World War, women getting the opportunity

to play football. This is actually a very interesting story, and I'll come to it now, but yeah, so as I said, croquet essentially gave men and women the opportunity to converse with one another before they were married which victorian etiquette absolutely very limited limited opportunity to do that but by the 1870s the fad of croquet had faded and the well -to -do of victorian england were ready for a new long game enter walter winfield creator entrepreneur retired army officer and

he was looking for a new way to make money and decided the best way to do that was to create a new game called lawn tennis uh created with sort of he built around an aristocratic veneer essentially it was just marketing when it came down to it nice in order to market initially to the upper classes and then have the middle classes desire it because obviously the rich and the famous of the day were playing it aspirational yeah yeah so in 1874 he started selling tennis

kits that could be bought from shops or mail ordered they would cost five guineas again going back to what guinea is um but that's equivalent to about 500 pounds a day we're actually a very lucky point in inflationary terms in that one guinea is is almost exactly equivalent to 100 pounds today so it makes doing these conversions extremely easy for me oh that's fun throwing one out to our bank of england enthusiasts and there's plenty of them around possibly So the

game he created was marketed as Sveristak, which was Greek for the art of playing ball, or lawn tennis, which is why it said on the box, it said Sveristak or lawn tennis. Unsurprisingly, the latter was the one that caught on. So it became popular very quickly. It was fuelled by links to the upper classes and royalties, I said, deliberately emphasised by Wingfield with lumeries such as the Duke of Edinburgh, which was Queen Victoria's second son, and also Oscar Wilde taking up the

game. While they soon moved on to... the new fad, golf in Wilde's case. Their names were used in marketing for years to come, selling the game to the middle classes who ate it up. Can I just say I did not expect Oscar Wilde to play a leading role in this story when it started. There you go. You're teaching me stuff, Jack. That's what I'm trying to say. I didn't either. I'm teaching

myself stuff when I do my research. The kits came with six basic rules of tennis, most of which are still used today, such as the ball can't bounce twice, you have to serve from a certain position. The difference was it used hourglass courts originally, so hourglass -shaped courts, as in wide at the ends and narrowing in the middle. That's odd. Instead of a rectangular court. The rules were standardised in 1875 by the Marlborough Cricket Club, the MCC. Yeah,

I knew about this. So they tried... That doesn't surprise me, I guess. They've got the lawns, haven't they? In a popular sport, people want to play it there. They got rid of the hourglass courts and recommended rectangular courts instead. There was also originally a single point -based system, similar to badminton or table tennis. One, two, three, four. However, Wingfield was a smart man, a smart marketer. He preferred that the game be marketed the same as real tennis,

which was... 15 30 40 same as tennis is today as opposed to racket the debtors prison game so preferring the royal game to the debtors prison game obviously to sell his game hence why the scoring system used in real tennis is used so no one's entirely certain why it goes 15 30 40 interestingly instead of 15 30 45 some say it's from clock faces but since the scoring system predates the minute hand on clocks it's definitely not that what about Is there any explanation

as to juice advantage? Yeah, so they think it's because instead of going 15, 30, 45, then you'd have to go like 52 .5, 60 to complete a point.

It's 15, 30, 40, 50, 60 if juice is needed. So that's the theory, although... it's bonkers i guess people with too much time on their hands it doesn't really matter anyway no but what i what i do like is why is the theory on why zero is love okay let's hear that that's fun the nice theory is it derives from playing for love as in playing for the love of the game rather than for prize or reward i want it to be that it's not going to be that though is it alternatively

it might be from the french word for egg which is with eggs resembling a zero which is also where the term duck comes from in cricket, as in getting zero in cricket is called a duck because it's said to resemble a duck egg, a zero. That's probably more likely, isn't it? Yeah, it's less fun, though. I like the link there, though. That's something. It also makes it more probable because these things in sport do tend to be linked and sort of recycled, don't they? They do, yeah.

Anyway, digressing hard here, so back to the actual tennis. Well, this is the tennis. This is the scoring system. Yeah, go on. The first public game was held in Knightsbridge, West London, on the 6th of May, 1874, at Prince's Club Cricket Field. A doubles match played in front of a few hundred spectators. Walter Wingfield participated in it, as it was his game. The Morning Post had encouraged his readers to go along and watch,

which brought a bit of a crowd out. No doubt in part due to the many, many advertisements Walter had taken out in their paper for his game kits. So mutually beneficial situation. First game was played on his hourglass court. They wore plus fours, long sleeve t -shirts and cricket caps, as was the fashion at the time. And the most important thing is it caught on ridiculously quickly. So bear in mind, this is 1874. 1875,

the rules were first standardized. The first Wimbledon championships, and bear in mind, Wimbledon was not the first tennis tournament. The first Wimbledon was in 1877. So it caught on super quickly from being essentially a fad marketing ploy to being a proper sport, which I think is quite cool. That is quite cool, yeah. So tennis clubs were founded at this point. The first tennis club was formed in Leamington Spa, with many

more to follow. It allowed, as I mentioned, a certain amount of socialization between men and women and between classes, albeit... middle to upper classes with the working class excluded this increases popularity amongst upwardly thinking young professional men the likes of lawyers and bankers giving them social contacts they'd otherwise struggle to get it also caught on with that type of people because a lot of them have played team sports at school they played rugby or cricket

or football while at school but were looking in older life for a less physical game, less likely to injure them, less likely to take up too much of their time, a more singular game, they don't have to rely on their teammates, and obviously the game of tennis really suited that type of people as well. The newly growing middle class. As I said, it's not just men it was popular with. The vast majority of sports in Victorian England obviously excluded women, since they

were deemed unladylike. tennis managed to almost sneak it under the radar piggybacking on the popularity of croquet well i guess if you start from the premise that you're allowed to play it then it becomes easier exactly to you know like all these other sports were created for men played by men and then the introduction of women was a challenge to the status quo i guess if you're starting from the premise that you are allowed to play it becomes a lot easier to

establish it as a sport in which we routinely play Yeah, it's like seeing a bunch of people kicking around a football on a football pitch and going over to ask them to play. They can say no to you. If you're there in the first place when the game starts, they can't kick you out, can they? Well, they can, but it's a lot harder, right? Exactly, yeah. And they tried. Of course they tried. Women had been playing it on the

lawns of these country homes. It had been a sport that a lot of women had got very good at very quickly, a lot of young women particularly. yeah because women are also good at sports yeah weird so what tends to happen is the the 18 19 20 year old women would play tennis because they wanted to find themselves you know they want to socialize with Men. Men, yeah. And potentially find themselves a husband. That was their priority. The 13, 14 -year -old women who were watching their older

sisters do this, they just loved the game. They just loved playing it. So it was those players that became the first Wimbledon champions, the first champions of the sport. The likes of Lottie Dodd, Maud Watson, Maud and Lillian Watson were an example of that. So yeah, the early stars of the game. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Wingfield was smart. He was a smart man.

He marketed his game heavily as being unisex, as any good salesman would, with women included on the images on the game boxes, and even offered a discount of a whole guinea to women buying his kits. That's like £100 in today's money, which is a nice, easy conversion. That's also not an insignificant sum back in the day, probably. Yeah. So essentially what this resulted in was by the time men in power woke up to the fact women were playing this energetic new sport,

it was too late to stop them. Strong -willed, middle - and upper -class women with little political power but plenty of collective power through their husbands and fathers and the power they exerted over them, simply didn't allow themselves to be sidelined and carried on playing the game. There were concessions made. They were made to wear ridiculous outfits, full -length dresses, bonnets on their head, corsets. Until 1920s, they had to wear corsets to play tennis. That

is what is going on, man. That is ridiculous. I mean, basically, essentially, it was... trying to minimize lust over any sense of practicality and yeah trying to watch a game of tennis and their first thought is lust victorian men apparently yeah apparently they also so they had terrible changing facilities at the tournaments they went to they had to be chaperoned everywhere by their mothers or the rants or whoever it was but they were allowed to play And they were allowed to

compete in tournaments. And they were allowed to attract gate receipts. And that solidified their position in the game because it was popular. Just as popular in many cases as the men's game. And tennis clubs became mixed clubs. Some tennis clubs tried to go single sex. There were some men's clubs and some women's clubs. But they

invariably failed for one very good reason. People wanted... mixed sex tennis clubs because it gave that opportunity to socialize in the same way that croquet had done obviously on the lawns of the posh parts of england and that makes sense because back in the day like all sport was recreational so like if that if people if people amateur yeah and if people are balking at that idea that you know like oh it's a place for effectively courtship to take place and you know that's improper it's

like well no back in the day all sport was recreation it was all just for dawson and so of course it was a great opportunity to go and meet the opposite sex and hang out with them and just have fun so that makes perfect sense to me it was a controlled enough environment that it passed sort of the victorian morality test whilst being a free enough environment to allow enjoyment to be had essentially so it was a mutually beneficial situation for women it gave them it essentially meant that

their game stayed on the same level as a men's game without rules getting changed without the game being minimized or made into a secondary consideration for men it had probably a slightly more direct benefit in that there was a lot of accusations towards tennis players at that time particularly from footballers and rugby players that it was a soft game essentially questioning the masculinity of the men playing the game well if you're in a tennis club and there's lots of

athletic young women going to the same club as you that gives you a defense to go out and say well stop questioning my uh masculinity i'm the one who gets to hang out with these beautiful young women yeah in this environment so it was a mutually beneficial situation even if it's not necessarily the best reason for being so protected the egos of men and let women play essentially yeah and egos of men is often what you've got to stroke in order to allow such things

to continue especially when men have all the power there was also mixed doubles was growing in popularity as well although bizarrely some clubs restricted partnering in mixed doubles to spouses siblings or officially engaged couples only so you couldn't just have the two best the best male player and the best female player in the club playing together against other clubs bizarrely it's bizarre which you'd think would be logical yeah well you know it didn't get it

all right that's what we're saying But it was much more progressive than others. They definitely didn't get it all right because it took a long time for these women to be given any real power within the clubs. In terms of positions on committees or anything like that, that was into war period before that started happening, really. And it also became about as close to equality between men and women that existed, but only middle class and above men and women. The working class was

still largely excluded from these clubs. Although there were some public tennis courts popping around which gave... opportunity for working class people of talent to go and play the game to display their talent and maybe get some coaching out of that particularly in America that's actually how a lot of the great early American champions and bear in mind America dominated the sport of tennis for until what 2002 pretty much for probably 100 years since the early 1900s absolutely

dominated it yeah well a lot of the great Wimbledon winners Connors, Jimmy Connors, Sam Press, McEnroe. They're all American, weren't they? Yeah. You could say the same, well, to a slightly lesser degree, actually, about the women, but yeah. Yeah, it was a long old domination. Anyway, Wimbledon. Tell a bit about the history of the tournament itself. How did it come about? I mean, this is lovely, the tennis stuff and everything, but

let's get on to the main event. So, as I said, A lot more expendable income, which wasn't just for giving people the opportunity to play the game. It also put more money in people's pockets for enthusiasts to go and watch the game, meaning there was a market there for these tournaments to come about and make people some money, which is always important. It's all about the Benjamins

at the end of the day. Indeed. So Wimbledon wasn't the first tennis tournament, but the All England Club... at the time was a croquet club originally and it was in trouble because croquet as i mentioned had gone out of fashion so instead it's also not a great viewer sport either croquet it's not a good spectator sport as well yeah we're there so they tried tennis instead generous to call it a sport really it's a game it's it's fun it's enjoyable i would not criticize croquet

or anyone who plays it and there is no such thing as bad sport that's our motto here on the almanac but It's probably not as good a viewer sport as tennis, to be fair. If someone set up a croquet championship that was of the size and scale of Wimbledon, I would want that person to teach me everything they know about marketing. Oh, absolutely. That person is a genius. Yeah. Sorry, anyway, Wimbledon. Yeah, they tried lawn tennis

and nailed it. That's pretty much it. The All England Croquet Club was founded in 1868 in Wimbledon, but by the 1870s... It really didn't take long for croquet to not be that fashionable anymore. But they made a good decision quickly to move on to tennis. And by 1877, the club's committee, led by Secretary Henry Jones, decided to organise a lawn tennis tournament to raise funds for the purchase of a new lawn roller. Which is a good

enough reason as any. Yeah, that's fun. Henry Jones disliked the variations in the rules across

different tournaments and regions. And somewhat counterintuitively, he decided to create his own rules, which seems... sort of part of the problem but nevertheless those rules did eventually become the standardized form or the basis for the standardized rules that we play today and it was very similar the first Wimbledon tournament it's very recognizable as modern tennis well that makes sense because it is the oldest tournament in the world and therefore you would have thought

that it would have all other tournaments would have taken its lead from Wimbledon absolutely So most importantly, they introduced rectangular court as per the MCC standardised rules, as opposed to the hourglass shape, which is just easier. Just a lot easier to comprehend, I think. Must be easier to draw the lines as well. Yeah, literally. I mean, obviously, as a coach, a football coach, I am used to drawing lines on the pitch. It is not easy to get those things straight, let alone

if you have to. The hardest lines to do on the pitch are the ones with any curve in them. So the penalty D in the centre circle. Absolute nightmare. So, yeah. So the tournament was advertised in the Field Sports magazine in June 1877, inviting amateur gentlemen to enter a singles competition for a fee of one guinea, about £100 today, for the opportunity to win a silver challenge cup.

So the first Wimbledon Championship began on the 9th of July 1877 with 22 amateur players, and it would remain amateur, as I said, until 1968, competing in a knockout format on the grass courts of Walpole Road. The final was delayed due to rain and took place on the 18th of July 1877 with Spencer Gore defeating William Marshall in straight sets to become the first Wimbledon

champion. I believe there was also a two -day break within the first tournament itself for the Harrow versus Eton cricket match, which was going on at Lourdes at the time. Just to not want to split those particular crowds, they took a couple of days off. So spectators played one shilling each to watch the final, with an estimated 200 people in attendance, marking the birth of what will become the most prestigious tournament in the world. There we go. And that's how we

get to Wimbledon. That's how we get to Wimbledon. That is a very good potted history of how you end up with one of the most prestigious and established sports events in the world. I should also mention before, I forget, 1884 was the first women's single. So that is seven years after, but still pretty early in the day. It just goes to show how deep the history of women's sport goes. And we will get into that more in the future. Wimbledon is going to be an amnial event. I hope that will

be going on for many years to come. And I absolutely will dive into some of these wonderful early women like Morden, Lillian Watson, Lottie Dodd. Susan Longland. Yeah, nice. Lots of legends. Of course there will be because, as you say, this is going to be a pillar of the sporting calendar for us. Yeah, it's going to be one of those ones. We're never going to knock to Wimbledon.

Exactly. I mean, is it worth saying? I was only going to add, like, in the open area, it's not just the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. It's now in collaboration with the Lawn

Tennis Association. The LTA being the... national governing body for tennis in the UK so yeah that's how we that's how we get here I mean the grass court season I find this fascinating about tennis the grass court season is really short mainly it's ridiculously short it's basically just in England and yeah I think there's a couple in the eastern United States yeah there's one in Germany as well but there's not many tournaments Harley in Germany I think it's Harley or Hall

Hala, I think it'll be. Nice. It's a very prestigious event. So yeah, I think Federer used to go there in warm -up for Wimbledon. But over here, obviously, it's Queen's, which has just concluded. And we're the women's edition this year. But on the women's circuit, you also have Nottingham, Birmingham, and perhaps more famously, Eastbourne. Yeah. But that's kind of it. Yeah, I mean, lawn tennis was originally lawn tennis. It was originally played on grass. The first variation in a court

was... It's very difficult to maintain good grass in the south of France, so what they started using instead was red clay, which is why clay is the most popular surface in France. Obviously, the French Open played on red clay. I think the US... Yeah, it was just practicality. The US originally went to clay. It had grass, and then it went to clay, and then it went, I think, green clay, and then it went to hardcore, obviously, which is what it is now, and the Aussie Open

is also... Hardcore to relatively recent. Yeah. But yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, obviously that means the inference there that everyone can draw is that Wimbledon is the only major or played on grass. The traditional surface, obviously. They're for the best. Obviously. So, should explain for anyone who doesn't know, different surfaces offer different challenges to players. Yes. A clay court is slower. which gives you

more time to get about the court. So rallies tend to be longer, and it favours players who are quicker and fitter and can move across court and maintain long rallies, such as Rafael Nadal, who, until his retirement, dominated the clay court scene for the best part of two decades. Yeah, forever. Our lifetime. And yeah, hardcore's fast. Very fast, but bouncier as well. Wimbledon tends to be low and fast, which tends to lead

to shorter rallies. Yes, that's the thing about grass, is that the ball does not bounce as high, but it's still fairly quick. And if you manage to win it all, you get... Quite a lot of cash. You do. And whether or not you're a man or a woman nowadays, you get the same amount of cash, which is... You do get the same amount of cash. I think the prize money is 50 mil, or it might just be over this year. In 2024, the winner got 2 .7 mil. This year, it's going to be three million

pounds. Three million pounds for winning a single tournament. I mean, you get plenty of money even for just getting there, even for... getting knocked out in the early rounds. If you get knocked out in the first round, you get 66 grand. I wouldn't say no. Yeah, 66 grand for a defeat in the first round. And if you get given a wild card... About twice as much as the average salary in the United Kingdom, that. Yeah, and if you get given a wild card, you've effectively been given 66k because

you won't have qualified. Which is, yeah, it's insane. I mean, prize money was only awarded in for the first time. Well, it's the open area, basically, for the first time in 1968. Yeah, it's been equal prize money since 2007, I think. Oh, is it? The men and women are paid the same, yeah. That's pretty good, since 2007. I thought it was more recent than that, but... I think Venus and Serena Williams had a big impact on that. Unsurprisingly. Obviously, their stratospheric

fame and ability. Yeah, and ability, and the fact that they kept winning. Yeah, I mean, it first awarded in 1968. And back in 1968, they got 26 grand for the pot and the men's title and two grand, which is the equivalent of about 44 ,000 pounds in the modern day. And the women's single champion only received 750 quid, which is the equivalent to about 16 grand, just over 16 and a half grand. How times change. Yeah, so 16 grand and 44 grand to 3 million is quite

a significant. And exponential growth. It's such a popular sport in the TV era. It is such a good sport to watch on TV. It's very easy to follow. It's very enjoyable to watch. Very visual and easy to track. The ball's easy to track. Bright yellow ball. Did you know why the ball's yellow? Did you know? No. Tennis balls used to be white, and since colour TV was introduced in the 1970s, they changed it to yellow to make it more visible. But do you know whose idea that was? Probably

the most famous person on the BBC. National treasure. Sue Barker? No, even more of a national treasure. David Attenborough? David Attenborough. Was it? Whose idea that was. Or who, certainly, maybe not his idea, but certainly who popularised it

and got that changed. There you go. random fact about David that was 50 odd years ago and the man's still going strong that's absolutely crazy that he's responsible for or partially responsible for yellow balls in tennis yeah it's fun isn't it that's absolutely insane yeah people's lives take you in all sorts of different directions I mean what a life is it worth Do we want to talk about, like, the modern format of the Wimbledon Championship? It's quite simple, actually. So,

yeah, I don't think it'll take long. Go ahead. Yeah, it's very simple. I mean, it's all pro these days. Well, it's not strictly true. You can be in it as an amateur. But it's a professional tournament because tennis is professional. And

it's a single elimination tournament. me and you can get real geeky about the setups of tournaments and the way in which you can formulate them and things like that but the gentlemen singles 128 people enter it lady singles 128 people enter it the only difference between those two events is that the gentlemen play a best of five sets and the women play best of three do we know why the women still play best of three because it's such a incredibly professional well attended

sport and there's literally no reason that women can't play five sets. Is it just tradition? Or has it just not quite reached the call to change it yet? Well, I don't know. I think it's probably a combination of factors. Tradition probably being the thing that underpins it all. But I

would say that scheduling is another. And for grass courts, for instance, you have to factor in wear, which is probably a modern... a modern phenomenon that is taken into account in a way that perhaps wasn't at the forefront of the mind originally and then maybe maybe to a lesser extent you know like the commercial viability of it yeah because obviously all majors they play men and women all play on the same courts one after

the other. So the game, sorry, what I mean by that is you don't go to the men's tournament and then the women's tournament. You go to a day at Wimbledon and you will see alternate games between men and women. What that means is that the tournament's success and its viewership is

not gender bias. And I don't know, and I don't have the statistics to comment with any degree of veracity about this, but I do wonder whether or not that also has a role in terms of, selling tickets and dedicating courts yeah i guess obviously it's probably one of those things similar to what we mentioned before it's probably had we been creating the sport now with equal prize money with equal prestige they would be playing the same we'd probably make them both the same

whether that be both playing three or both playing five it would be the same but it's harder to change and probably i can't imagine that the women who actually play the game probably want it to happen like if they're really as much as they'd like to say i'm sure they can do it i'm sure they know they can do it it is probably easier for them to play best of three when they have such a hectic schedule. So perhaps there's just no desire for it to change. Nevertheless,

that is the only difference. Yeah, one other slight variation is the means by which you can enter the main draw. So you get 104 direct entries from the men's and you get 108 into the ladies. And then the difference is made up by eight wildcard entries into both tournaments and then qualifiers fill in the gaps. So the men have slightly less direct entries than the women. More people can qualify for the men's tournament. And then the top 32 players are given seedings in the men

and women's draws. The seedings does get a little bit complicated. There's a committee that sees the top 10 players, and then in respect to the doubles, obviously the pairs, based on their rankings. But it used to be discretionary. There's now an agreement in place of the ATP to use their seeding system as of 2021. But it gets real boring. And it's effectively the players' previous grass court performances. So it's not just their world

ranking. So I think the ATP entry system is like 100 % of the points you earn on all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months. 75 % of the points you earned on the grass court tournaments in the 12 months prior to that. Fair enough. It's a slightly complicated equation. What it essentially leads to is that the player deemed the best in the tournament cannot play the player deemed the second best in the tournament until the final. Unless they both reach the final.

Yeah, exactly. Which is often the case. And it's just alternate. So one and three will be on the same side of the draw as two and four and so on and so forth. Bit of an oddity, really, in seeding systems, because normally one plays four, obviously, to give the benefit to the top seed. Regardless, it doesn't matter, because you still have to beat everyone to win it. It doesn't matter, exactly. The majority of people are unseeded as well, which is also the reason it doesn't

matter. But if you think that seeding is unimportant, think again. Because only two unseeded players have ever won the gentlemen's singles. A certain Boris Becker in 1985. Two ridiculous tournaments as well. Yes. Legendary. And the other is Goran Isinisevic in 2001. Which, yeah, I think that's the moment I fell in love with Wimbledon. I remember Pete Sampras winning it. I remember it happening, but I don't remember being so engrossed by it.

But Goran Ivanovic, I was all in for him for that final, as were most of the British public. Yeah, we love an underdog. It's another thing about tennis, which has always been the case from the start. It's a very star -driven sport. Obviously, when there's a single player with a single personality, their style of play and the way they approach the game and their personality and everything has a huge impact on how the fans react to them. with the British public, particularly

with Wimbledon. We don't care about flags or nationality compared to how we would in other sports. There'll be times where a British player might be playing a very popular foreign player and be treated as equals essentially by the crowd. Certainly you'd end up with both players getting a huge standing ovation at the end of the game

if it's a good game. There's just a lot of respect for... foreign players who play the game the right way the most notable example of that in the past 20 years being roger federer yeah like absolutely adored by the british public for good reason yeah if you're one of winwood and his favorite sons it doesn't matter who you're playing you will still be supported it is slightly unusual in the sense that you know you're sort of a hostage to the relative performance of your country's

ability to produce talent and so therefore you will naturally create an affiliation to you know your favorite or best player that remains available to you regardless of their nationality so there is that but yeah the fact the fact that Andy Murray is a bit of an oddity in a in in the men's game in that he's a British player who actually won Wimbledon yes which hadn't happened for what was it 80 years? Ridiculous. Fred Perry, yeah. No, exactly. And that doesn't mean we're not

partisan. I mean, when Murray was at his pomp, we were partisan. And Tim Henman before that as well. Yeah. But what would probably be fair to say is if you were, you know, the next rung down of talent, like a Dan Evans or someone like that, you would be well supported at Wimbledon and people would definitely want you to win. But if you were knocked out by Roger Federer, people wouldn't be devastated. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. Obviously, everyone who goes

is a tennis fan. There's a huge appreciation for playing tennis in a certain style that's eye -catching, that's elegant. Roger Federer, that's why he's so popular. Not just talented, but so good to watch. The man. Sorry. No, no, don't say sorry. I don't know if you want to know any more about those seeded victories because

I can shit all over Beckers if you want. do it only to say in 1985 there were only 16 seeds and becca was ranked 20th so in the modern day becca would be a seeded player to have won the tournament and so it's a little um like you know a disingenuous to claim that that was sort of like a other than the fact that he was an actual child it was a bit disingenuous from a seeding i was gonna say to say he was 17 years old at the time yeah And then Isovich, on the other

hand, was ranked 125th when he won. And he also was a wildcard entrant. However, it's also fair to say that Isovich was a damn good player. And actually been a finalist three times. He's been ranked number two in the world. And he was only ranked so low because he'd been injured, basically, for a long period of time. But it was still, I mean, it was still an incredible story, especially because he had lost three finals before. He was

this nearly mad, very volatile player. very almost split personality kind of player who could go from being brilliant to being terrible in a moment. And we, the British public, love someone like that. We love a flawed hero. And he nearly had his pants pulled by Hemman in the semis, but the rain stopped play and even Isovich rallied afterwards. And, well, the rest is history, as they say. In 1996, the title was run by Richard

Kroychek. He was originally unseeded. He was ranked 17th and only 16 players were seeded. But he was promoted to a seeded position when a chap called Thomas Muster withdrew. There is one other person to have won the title unseeded. Marketa Vondrusova. Yes, ranked 42. In 2023. And prior to her... Just making sure that gets mentioned. Yeah, well, no, I was going to say prior to her, the lowest seeded female champion was Venus Williams, who won from 23rd. That doesn't

surprise me. But this does actually surprise me that I would have thought the women's game is possibly more likely to produce unseeded winners because it can be a bit more unpredictable than the men's game a lot of the time, obviously being shorter matches, obviously only having to win two sets to win it. And you get a lot more players sort of leaving the game and coming back as well because they may leave the game to start a family

and then they'll come back to it. So they might come back to it with a lower seed than their ability deserves, things like that. I'm surprised that was the only one. Although, again, that's a bit of an anomaly because she was coming back from injury. She would have been ranked way higher because it was 2007. I mean, the other people that we mentioned earlier, the two other ways of qualifying, wild cards and qualifiers. Qualifiers have also done well at Wimbledon. It's not unheard

of. Most famously from a British perspective is Emma Raducanu winning the US Open as a qualifier. That was incredible. Yeah, we'll probably speak about it another time. But qualifiers can do well in tournaments. It's just very, very rare. There's a massive qualifying tournament held a week before Wimbledon at the Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton. The singles qualifying competitions are three -round events. But from 2019, single qualification will increase to 128

players. which is pretty crazy. So it's just a huge qualification tournament to get into the main draw. The furthest that any qualifier has progressed in the singles tournament is the semifinals. John McEnroe did it in 1977. And a chap called Vladimir Volchakov in 2000 also made the semifinals. Don't remember him. And in the women's... No, I don't either, weirdly. Yeah. And in the women's... I've heard of this guy McEnroe, though. He's quite good. I think he came back. Maybe once

or twice more. Yeah, he had a few moments. And then Alexandra Stevenson in 1999 made the ladies single semis as well. So nobody's ever won Wimbledon as a qualifier. Emma Raducanu has won the US Open. Can I point that out again as a qualifier? So yeah, I think that's quite interesting though. It sort of shows that whilst it's an individual

sport, upsets are very, very rare. On the wild cards, they go to people who have performed well in previous tournaments or, and this is the big one, I guess, would stimulate public interest in Wimbledon by participating, which normally means they give a disproportionate number to British players and or injured legends. Yeah. Either a young, up -and -coming British player or a old -timer who, you know, you want to see at the tournament again. Similar things obviously

happen in other sports, golf. once you've won a tournament often you get a place in slightly different with golf though because the field is slightly you know you can you can increase the size of the field a bit easier yeah definitely and can i quickly say before we move on to perhaps talking more about the event itself like is in the games or the stars yeah it's not just the gentlemen singles and the lady singles you have Gentlemen's doubles, ladies doubles, mixed doubles,

boys singles, girls singles, boys doubles, girls doubles and then a series of invitationals as well all taking place. But frankly, we're all here for the singles. And wheelchair tennis and... Yeah, they're part of the invitationals. Sorry, I should have made that clear. Yes, you have all the wheelchair events. There's an awful lot of tennis played in not a lot of time, really. Yeah, and it's all on TV. I mean, even the boys and girls singles sometimes make TV if British

players get there. You certainly get the highlights. All of those tournaments are popular. And again, those games are mixed in amongst the singles and stuff. I think some of them start a bit later because obviously the men's and women's major events are the headline shows with the highest number of participants. If you want, by comparison, in the gentlemen's doubles, there are 64 entries, same with the ladies. Mixed doubles is only 32. Boys and girls singles, 64 -person tournaments.

So they stagger them throughout the week, the two week, the fortnight, but they are all played amongst one another. So yeah. That's the tournament itself. That's what you're gearing up for if you're going to tune in. People who are familiar with Wimbledon might know quite a lot of that, but I think nonetheless it's quite interesting. Yeah, what do you want to talk about next? I mean, I can go anywhere, mate. I can go on to the infrastructure. I can tell you about the

courts. I can tell you about the makeup of the fucking grass again. Go on. Right now, tell me the grass. I want to know the grass immediately. Don't spare any details. Okay. The grass. Right, let me find this, mate. I do have it. That's what happens when you have a demanding co -host. Okay, the grass. Prior to 2001, the grass was a combination of ryegrass and creeping red fesco, or fescue. 70 % ryegrass, 30 % the other stuff, the creeping red. Creeping red is best adapted

to, because it's... Good for draining soils in cool, temperate climates. Prefers shadier areas. It's often planted in the shade for its tolerance, which obviously makes sense in a stand or in a court surrounded by stands. It's also an ornamental grass and good for the aesthetics with a springy characteristic. Again, good attributes for lawn tennis at Wimbledon. Picking all the boxes. Because it looks beautiful. It's springy. Gives you that little extra, you know, surface unpredictability.

Since 2001, the court has basically been sown with 100 % perennial ryegrass, which is a grass native to Europe, not to be confused with the grain rye, and is traditionally a grazing grass used for pasture. It's also popular on lawns, and most grass court tennis courts use it. I think the change was made to improve the durability of the grass and strengthen the sward. Well,

obviously. To better withstand the increasing wear of the modern game, the sword being the upper layer of soil, especially when covered with a short layer of grass. So there you go. There's the grass at Wimbledon. You didn't think I could deliver. I'm always here for our horticulturalists. No problem. I always believe in you. You have a lack of faith in my faith in you. So to me, there's nothing better looking in sport than day one of Wimbledon, how good the grass looks.

Now, it does tend to fade as the days go on, especially around surface areas, service areas around the back of the court. But, you know, day one, nothing looks better than a freshly cut Wimbledon green grass court. It's a beautiful place. The reverence. It's a reference in our voices. It's true. Like it's, you know, the flowers, like the colors. Yeah. Like you say, the grass is pristine. It's just got everything. It has everything. Q's, strawberries. What more could

you want? Oh, mate, traditions. Yeah. Well, now that you mentioned them, allow me. So like, I don't know what order to do this in. I'll do this in order of as if you were seeking to attend. There is the ballot for those outside of the UK. I mean, well, actually, there's a ballot for everyone, but those who don't live in the UK will be less familiar with it. You have to sign up for a ballot to get tickets. It's extremely oversubscribed. I think it's like four to one,

something like that, get tickets. So, you know, very difficult. But if you don't get tickets, do not despair, because there is another way. perhaps a more famous way of getting into the grounds of Wimbledon, which is to get into the queue. And it is just called the queue. And yes, we are famed for queuing. And yes, we do have an actual queue for Wimbledon. It's really fucking long. You have to get there like 4am, maybe even

earlier. Some people camp overnight. You can get sent to court tickets and court number one tickets through the queue, but there are obviously very, very few of them. So you have to be right at the front, but you can get ground court tickets, which give you access to. Quartz, I think it's probably three and beyond now because Quartz 2 is bigger, but possibly includes Quartz 2. So that's how you get in. Once you're in, strawberries and cream, naturally. That's what you'll be indulging

on. I actually had tickets this year, but I can't go. My mate Justin, who you know, got us both tickets. His name is actually Jack, but that's my name, so he's Justin. Got us tickets, but unfortunately it clashes with our summer gala at the football club. Priorities. That is, yeah. Heartbreaking. Better not be sending court tickets, mate. No, no, no. Just open tickets. Okay. That's fine. That's forgivable. Okay. So, yeah. Strawberries and cream. If you're not eating strawberries

and cream, you might be drinking champagne. If you can afford it. If you allow yourself. So, yeah. It's all highbrow stuff. But, get to the courts. Actually, no. Before we get to the courts. The Orangy Terrace. Do you know what the Orangy Terrace is? I actually don't. Yes, you do. You just don't know what it's actually called. Has been known over the years as the Rosetzky Ridge. There we go. Henman Hill. And more recently, Murray Mound. Most still call it Henman Hill.

It is a bank within the grounds outside of Centre Court. And Centre Court has a huge screen on it where people gather to watch the games that are going on within it with their ground passes. I did assume that's what you were talking about, but I didn't want to spoil your moment there. You want to burst my bubble? You could have burst it. I would never. Yeah, so that's a whistle -stop of your traditions as a fan. But if you're going on to court, then you better be wearing

all white. Otherwise, you're getting kicked the fuck out. It's a strict all -white dress code for competitors. I think you're allowed a modicum of color on a collar or the sole of your shoe or something like that. Don't take the piss, otherwise you're getting fined. The sole of your shoe. Honestly, it's something absurd like that. But that's the most famous one, in fact. Yeah, even off -white or cream is considered a violation,

apparently. Yeah, damn right it is. So male players originally wore cricket whites, did you know? Oh, so they played cricket in whites and the women played in corsets. That seems fair. Yeah, fair. But yeah, all white is taken very seriously, but it does make it look cool. You can still make fashion statements. I think the Williams sisters have done some cool stuff over the years. Roger Federer's worn his cardigan. Yeah, people can still be flexible. Roger Federer can do whatever

he wants. Roger Federer's probably the only man who could get away with wearing all red if he wanted to. I don't even think the organizers would just be like, yeah, go ahead, Roger. You earned it. No, no, no, no, no. But he never would. He never would. Maybe that's it. Maybe you're right, actually. He just wouldn't, would he? That's just Roger, her classy operator. Talking as if we know him. Weird. Well, I mean, he's won eight Wimbledon titles. We basically know

him. I feel like I know him. Yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, beyond the all -white dress code, you've got the ball boys and girls, which everybody will see on TV. They have their dress code. Average age of 15, apparently. I didn't know. Predominantly taken from year 11 and 10 in the school, the British school system. Can you translate that to American for us? That would be the 9th and 10th grade. I think they're one below. Yeah, because the 12th grade is senior in high school,

which would be year 13 for us. Okay, yeah. So they're allowed to be a boy and girl up until year 13. They can do up to five tournaments. Their brief is, and I think this is like... This is a bit of a relic, to be fair. Not sure it would be coined if someone was drafting a motto for them or a guidance note for them tomorrow. But it says they should not be seen. They should blend into the background and get on with their jobs quietly. Which the majority do, the majority

of the time. They do, they're very good. Apart from when Tim Hammond hits them in the face with rogue shots. Which was his fault. Which was his fault. And then he gave the young girl a bunch of flowers and did say sorry. Having been disqualified. Having been DQ'd, yeah. Because it was one of those instances where he just smashed the ball away in frustration. Hit a poor ball girl in the face. You will get DQ'd 100 % of the time for that. Yes. As you should. Yeah, yeah. Who

is it? Sharapolov in the Davis Cup hit the umpire in the face. We're just hitting the ball into the... He was trying to hit the ball away in frustration as a crowd. Hit the umpire in the eye. I could forgive hitting an umpire more than I could forgive hitting a ball boy or girl. Yeah, we're DQ'd immediately. Who was it Kyrgios was saying should have been DQ'd? Yeah, that really fiery game with Tsitsipas, that's it. When Tsitsipas smashed the ball into the crowd and Kyrgios was

like, don't you get DQ'd for that? He didn't because it didn't hit anyone. And Kyrgios was like, that's a bit of a perverse rule. Why has he got to hit someone in the face before you get DQ'd? Which I think he's got a point about. I agree with Nick Kyrgios sometimes, to be fair. I like Nick Kyrgios a lot. That might be one of those examples. Yeah, he's very entertaining.

He's very entertaining. I'm just such a shame he's got so many injuries because I really hoped he was going to get a slam when he made that women's final against Djokovic. Yeah. But yeah, what else are we going to tell you about the boy girls and ball boys and ball girls? They receive a certificate. They get a can of used balls, which is a bit weird. Random. There's a photograph taken of them, obviously. They do get paid, but I mean, like... I don't know what

Wimbledon are trying to do here. They're not really paid. They get a total of £160 to £250 for the entire 13 -day period. That's pocket money, isn't it? Yeah. I'm surprised that's legal. £17 a day. That feels... Like, that someone should be investigating that. Just call them volunteers. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you're going to do that, don't do the piss and say you're paying them. They keep their kit, though. They

are split 50 -50, which is great. Girls were only introduced in 1977, though, and didn't appear on Senate court until 1985. So, as we were saying earlier, the sport is not perfect. But it has

done, historically. better than most and it is cool that it's 50 -50 and they're 50 -50 on court as well for all games now which is cool and then the final tradition I was going to mention which is just you know because it's fun is the Wimbledon Championship dinner Wimbledon Champions dinner sorry formerly known as the Champions Ball invite event at the end obviously the two champs go traditionally they dance together and there's a picture of their respective trophies like it's

just a tradition Which is fun. Fair enough. I got a couple more random facts. Yeah, of course. We love a random fact. So I like this one. The tournament employs, and I'm saying employs because he does a very important job, a resident hawk named Rufus, whose job is to scare away pigeons predominantly. So anyone who's ever been to London will know. There's a lot of pigeons, yeah. Pigeons are everywhere. So Rufus does a valuable job. That's a cool job. Rufus the hawk. Yeah, legend.

Rufus the hawk. Players are always referred to by formal titles as well. Formal honorifics. I think that's just been dropped. Has it? Oh, I did not know that. Yes, but you are right. You're not wrong to raise that because that is traditionally what's been done, but I think it's just been dropped. I'm okay with that. Yeah. A bit old -fashioned. Indeed. You were going to say, though, it was Mr., Miss, Miss, all that stuff. Which is what the umpire would traditionally

announce players as. And it appears on the scoreboard that way as well. Although men don't have their prefix. I think it was only women. Okay. In that case, I'm okay with it going. Yeah. Yeah. Other quirks? I've got some others. Do you want me to chuck out a couple more? These are less tradition. It's just interesting facts. Yeah, go for it. The relationship with Schlesinger is the world's longest running sports sponsorship. Cool. They've been providing the balls for the tournament since

1902. which is pretty cool. Yeah, I noticed in my research for this, there was deals between early champions and Schlesinger, like obviously to market their rackets and stuff. And I was surprised how far back Schlesinger went, really. Yeah, same. Very ubiquitous in British tennis. I really didn't know that they were that longstanding either. From a playing perspective, it's the only major that retains a nighttime curfew. Matches can continue until 11 at night, but under the

lights, but not beyond that. The challenge is, I mean, apparently this is because of transport connectivity and getting visitors home safely. Fair enough. But I think it's more a whinge from the rich people that live in Wimbledon. Also probably likely. Yeah. It's a very affluent area. It is. Rain used to stop play across the tournament and still does, except on Centre and Court 1. It rains a lot here, guys, for those who don't

know. Yeah, so anyone who doesn't know anything about the United Kingdom, it actually rains a lot here. Not today, unfortunately. I would love some rain because it is the course of this recording slowly getting warmer. Yes, it is a hot day. But even in the middle of July and June, yeah, we're partial to some rain. So, yeah, they now have roofs. We can talk about the courts if you want. We can go into a bit more detail about that. But that is a fairly recent change in the

two show courts having roofs put on them. Yeah, it was on Centre Court first and then very recently, I think, on number one in the last couple of years. Yeah, just pre -COVID, but yeah. Oh, was it? But yeah. COVID distorts time. Yeah. That's a couple of years ago, COVID, wasn't it? Jesus. They used to play on the middle Sunday. There used to be no play on the middle Sunday, sorry, but that's now changed. It was traditionally to give the grass a break. Yeah. But like technology,

et cetera. That was always, it was never going to last too much, too many games played now. Yeah. And this is really sad one. All in -person line judges are being replaced this year by the electronic line calling system for the first time in 147 year history. Why? I don't know. Oh, the unceasing march of technology against our traditions and our labour. I hate that. I don't understand why you can't just retain the

challenge system. I guess because people are saying, why should I lose because of a cock -up? But how often does that happen, right? Because that's sport. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could go into a rant about this. It's happening in baseball as well, or potentially happening in baseball.

There's now a review system in baseball. yes there were some very bad umpires and yes there are going to be line judges who are better than others in tennis but that's sport both players have to deal with it yeah and it's only a single point single points always seem important if they're contextually a set point a game point or something like that or even a match point but across the course of a game you're going to get a handful it's going to make a very small

difference to the result yes i agree don't like that I'm not a big fan of it either. I know it's the way things are going, but, you know, what's wrong with having your judges make the initial call and having the technology there to back it up? What's wrong with mistakes in sport? Yeah, yeah. I mean, players make mistakes, but then people would say that that's how the game's supposed to be defined and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I get it. All right, let's not go down this rabbit

hole. Let's talk about the grounds quickly. Courts. Very quickly. There's 19 of them. Show courts, centre court, court one. They're obviously used exclusively for Wimbledon. There have been a few exceptions to that. Davis Cup, Olympics, that sort of thing. Yeah, I was going to say the Olympics, yeah. Yeah, the other 17 are used for other things occasionally as well, other events and things. But Sands Court is where it's at. It's the iconic venue. The grounds are beautiful.

The stadium is beautiful. The flowers are beautiful. The setup, it's much bigger than you think. If you've never been, you should try and go. It's a very, very cool place. Capacity, just under 15 ,000. It's got the Royal Box in it. You can sit in there for your invite as well. Famously, you get people like Beckham sat in there. Usually hosts the final and the semis. A lot of earlier round games played in centre court, but obviously it normally involves top seeded players or local

favourites. Yes. It must be rare for Andy Murray to play anywhere other than centre court, really. Yeah, maybe on court one occasionally, but you're right. Murray would have been a centre court stalwart. being a high seed and a local favourite. Same with Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, all the big names. Yeah. Yeah, court one, capacity a bit smaller, 12 ,345. Some players prefer it. Apparently it's a bit more intimate, better atmosphere. As we said earlier, both of those courts have

a roof on them. First championship match to take place under the roof on centre was a fourth round women's singles match between... Dinara Safina and Amelie Maresmo in 2009. Maresmo being a very good player. Well, they're both very good players there, actually. But Maresmo, I think, won two majors and became Andy Murray's coach later in life. I was going to say, and a coach, yeah, later. First full match to be played under the

roof featured Andy Murray and Stan Marinka. Played on the same day, presumably because they just started pissing it down. Nice. The first final was the 2012 Gentlemen's Singles Final, 8th of July, 2012. We'll probably both remember this one. Federer versus Murray. Oh, heartbreaking, yeah. Not because Federer won. You can always respect that. That interview with Andy Murray. I can't watch it. I can't watch that. It makes

me cry every time. But it's one of the wonderful things about sport that on the basis of that, it made what happened in 2013 all the better. And a few weeks later at Wimbledon in the Olympics. Yes, true. Yeah. God, he had a good 2012 and 2013, didn't he? He was, yes. He was very good. Quart 2, just very, like, I want to touch on these two because I think this is fun and you'll like this. So Quart 2 is 3 .5 metres below ground.

Oh, cool. They had to dig it down into the ground for planning permission because the people of Wimbledon, who we were whinging about earlier, banging on about it being like an eyesore and it had to stay like one storey high so they had to build it into the ground. Quart 2 has a capacity for 4 ,000 people, no roof. The Old Court No. 2 has been renamed Court No. 3, and the Old Court 2, so now 3, was known as the Graveyard of Champions.

Ooh, that's a good name. Yeah, because so many highly seeded players have been eliminated there during the early rounds over the years, including Ili Nastazi, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova. They've all had their pants pulled in the graveyard. That's a hell of a list. Yeah, you can see why it's got its name, right? Close to being everyone. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that was just a fun stat.

That's all I really want to say about the courts. There's loads of them. But why don't we talk about some of the games or the protagonists who have been on the courts? It is all about the games and the players. As I said earlier, it's such a personality and such a hero -driven sport. And the Wimbledon public and the British public, they love a champion. Love a champion regardless of where they're from in the world. They do. And the most wins, God himself. The Federation.

Sir Roger Federer. Can we do that? Can you get one? You can give him an honorary one, but let's make an exception. There should be some movement for that. If Beckham's getting one. I mean, I love Beckham, but not an eight -time champ. At Wimbledon. Also won it five times between 2003 and 2007. Like, if you haven't gathered, Jack and I are very big fans of Roger Federer. He is... There is no Wimbledon without Federer in

my life. We were very blessed at our age. The level of champions that we were able to watch, obviously. Got Serena and Venus on the women's side coming through at the same time. Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, the big four, all winning. And of those, by some distance, well, I mean, obviously we love Andy Murray too, but Roger Federer was iconic. Like Tiger Woods. Like

Usain Bolt. And he's been involved in some of the great finals, even the ones he lost, like when he lost to Nadal in five, when he lost to Djokovic in five, when he had a match point against Djokovic. Like, you know, some of the greatest Wimbledon finals you've ever seen. Basically, what it demonstrates to me is that, you know, you can... You can debate until the cows come home which of those three in particular you consider

to be the greatest of all time. And obviously the statistics would suggest it's Shokovic now, but that's not always the full picture. We would say Federer, I think. But I think what that demonstrates is that if you were going to win Wimbledon and Roger Federer was in that tournament, you have to go to the depths and be at your very, very best to beat him. I don't know if he's ever lost a Wimbledon final, not in five. He might have

lost one in four against Djokovic. He's never been straight set in the final, I don't think. Federer lost one against Djokovic in four. The rest have been five, and two of those have gone to extra sets at the end. So, obviously, 9 -7 against Nadal, and then I think it was like 12 -10 against Djokovic. Yeah. An absolute heartbreaker in 2019. Yeah, that was a sickness. 13 -12. Yeah, that went all the way to a final set tie break. They just changed the rules. That is a sickness.

Federer on grass is like the pinnacle of the sport. If you can beat him, then you've done something miraculous. Banging on a little bit here about the men's side, Navratilova has won nine women's titles. Yeah. Which is insane. She also won six in a row. She's also got the most match wins at Wimbledon, 120. Federer's got 105. But yeah. I mean, I've got one game I want to talk about, but you got anything else you want

to mention about events, players, people? I mean, we've mentioned Becker winning at 17, which is absolutely barbaric. I'm going to assume you're going to talk about Federer and Nadal. Oh, no, I wasn't. I was going to go more niche than that. You do Federer and Nadal, then, if you want to have a dabble. Well, I mean, I can have a quick word on it. Let me just get my notes up, because you've done what I've done to you earlier in

the episode now. Caught me on the worst. 2008 men's final yeah so it widely regarded by many as the greatest match in tennis history certainly at the time four hours 48 minutes which is an epic relentless shot making two rain delays momentum swings left and right and eventually Nadal ending Federer's five -year reign at Wimbledon in near darkness 9 -7 in the fifth set which was We talk about what it takes to beat him. That's what it takes to beat him. And Nadal was an incredible

player in his own right, obviously. Almost unbeatable on clay, but a brilliant player, even on grass. Yeah, he got two titles himself, didn't he, Rafa? Yeah, along with, was it nine? No, more than that. Was it more than that, 13 or something mad? Yeah, it's mad. His slam total is heavily distorted by the French. That's not to... disparaging about him as a player. It's just his dominance in France was as dominant as Federer has been at Wimbledon. What on earth? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 French Opens. Absolutely insane. I do apologise for saying nine originally. Yeah, that's embarrassing. Bouluminec. I mean, yeah, that final was, yeah, something else. It's one of those things where sometimes you just have to watch sport and be like, it doesn't really matter who wins this. No. As I said, we're so honoured, so blessed to have been able to watch that. Like you say, gone down in history as possibly

the greatest game ever. I know recency bias is probably playing a role here, but that Alcraz -Sinner final in the French this year, where Alcraz saved three match points and came from two sets down and 5 -4 down in the third, facing three match points is pretty wild. But maybe where Rafa Federer has the edge is the status and greatness of the two guys that competed in it. The finals between them that preceded it, obviously, Federer being successful up to then.

This was Nadal's turn. It took a monster effort to win it. All sport is great, but some sport is greater than others. That's a nice way of putting it. A little bit of an Animal Farm quotation. I was going to mention the longest match that's ever been played. Ah, yes. You do that, please. John Isner versus Nicola Mahou. For anyone who doesn't know this, this is absurd. This is absurd. Okay, I'll just put some context for you. So it's not the case anymore. Now, if the last set

is 12 all, they'll have a tiebreaker. So a tiebreaker is single points until someone is seven points or two points clear. Previously, in the final set at Wimbledon, you just played until someone was two sets clear. So picture in your mind... Two games clear in the set. Two games clear. I do apologise. Yeah, two games clear. So just picture in your mind what you think a ridiculous score for the last set would be. And then let's hear this story, if you don't know already, obviously.

So the year is 2010. The round is the first round, which makes this even more ridiculous, I think. Because Nicolas Mahou qualified. He qualified. John Isner is in the main draw. They're both good players. They are both decent players, yeah. Very good players. And they're both much more famous than perhaps they might have been for this game. We're on court 18. And Jesus Christ. It's an 11 hours and 5 minutes game. The third and fourth, right, so it's a five -set game.

It's 11 hours and five minutes in total. The third and fourth both went to tie breaks as well. So first and second sets are like, I can't remember off the top of my head, 6 -4, 4 -6, something like that. Then it's two tie breaks though. So those two sets go the distance. Then you're in the fifth. And it has to, obviously, as you say, reach a conclusion by which someone has won by two clear games. It spanned three days. So Tuesday, they started on the Tuesday. Just stop on health

and safety grounds. The game started on Tuesday at 6 .13 in the evening. And they played until seven minutes past nine. And then they have to suspend the game for light. And then they come back on Wednesday to carry on the game. Start at 2 .05 in the afternoon and play until 9 .09 in the evening on Wednesday. And then they come back on Thursday and they play. This is a first round game. And they're on Thursday of the first week. This is insane. Do not blame them for changing

the rules. Put it that way. And then 3 .40 on Thursday, they play until 4 .47. Seven hours, four minutes was played on day two. There was a total of 183 games. In the match. And it finished 70 -68 to Isner in the fifth. It's absurd. It can never happen again because they've changed the rules. Honestly. It's the most consecutive service games held in a match. 168. 84 times each they both held service. The final set was longer than the previous longest game. That's

incredible. I mean, what else do you want to know? Most points won in the match as well. I think this is actually, I was going to mention this to you because I think this is one of the weirdest anomalies about tennis is the scoring system and the way in which games are won. So this had the most points won in a match, right? Nicholas Mahou won 502 points to John Isner's 478. Yeah. And John Isner won. Heartbreaking.

because obviously if you win your service games quicker than your opponent wins theirs then you will this is one of the weirdest things about tennis is you can win more points in tennis routinely and not be considered the better player you can win more points than your opponent and lose and I think that is such a weird I don't know like dynamic to the game like it's all about winning the big points it's not about winning every point yeah I think Roger Federer speaks Very eloquently

on this, the idea of as a tennis player, you have to put every single point behind you, whether it's the best shot you've ever done in your life or the worst mistake you've ever done in your life. You have to forget about it immediately because one point is worth nothing in a tennis match. It is the accumulation of those points, obviously. The wind you a game, the set wind you a match. You've just got to put it behind you and move on. 502 points in a game won and

not winning those. How do you put that behind you? You played for 11 hours in the first round game. John Isner was seeded 23 in that tournament as well. But I think they're now very good friends, these guys. I don't blame them. There's a plaque on court 18 in commemoration to it. I think at the end of the game, they were both given, I think the tournament gave them some sort of, not a trophy as such, but I guess like a symbol

of sorts, gave both of them something. And then someone who won their first round game and was waiting on the result of that game just sat around for two days waiting, three days, sorry, waiting for this match to finish to be able to play their second round game. And then beat John Isner in straight sets, obviously. Unsurprisingly. Yeah, like Isner didn't stand a chance. Fair play to

him for not just pulling out. Well, indeed. I mean, I think that game encapsulates everything that sort of makes... tennis one of the great games like it's it's about attrition hard work determination psychological fortitude yeah arts yeah like and that's the thing actually it sort of combines it combines like um a very technical aesthetically pleasing skill at its best with like an endurance and an uh an energy in a way that a lot of sports don't actually it's quite

interesting so i it was the most frustrating game that i've ever played I play tennis a little bit, just a tiny bit, just dabble from time to time. I found it so frustrating because I knew what I was capable of. I knew I was capable of hitting a forehand right on the tram lines. Beautiful timing. I just could do it so rarely. You turn it in on yourself. Golf, we talked about this in the Masters episode with golf. I know obviously you have an opponent in tennis and their skill

is a... It's a lot different to golf in that respect. But you're still playing yourself. There's no one else to blame, nowhere else to hide. It's you against your own mind a lot of the time. Yeah, definitely. I guess where it is different to golf, though, is that your opponent can defeat you. Whereas in golf, you sort of defeat yourself, right? It's you versus the course in golf. And if someone else happens to do better, nothing you can do about that. Yeah, exactly. But anyway.

Yeah, can I just end by saying, obviously I mentioned earlier there was a boys and girls tournament as well as the men's and women's. There have actually been four men and four women who have won the juniors and seniors singles titles in the open era, which I thought was kind of fun. I don't know who any of these are, so I'm very interested. I think it's four men and three women have won in the open era. There are four and four, I think, across the lifespan of Wimbledon.

Yeah, do you want to have a guess? The men? One of them you'll be able to get. Oh. Two of them you'll be able to get. You should be able to get, if you think logically. Andy Roddick? No, he never won Wimbledon. He never won Wimbledon, did he? No, he lost two finals. He famously said about Federer, after Federer beat him in a final, I threw the kitchen sink at him and he threw the bathtub back. So I know he's won a boys Wimbledon.

That was why I guessed that. And then immediately after I said it, I realised he never actually won Wimbledon. And that was heartbreaking, too, when he lost that final. Yeah, well, that's the quote I was just giving you. It's funny. Yeah. No, just tell me. All right. Are we guessing all day? Pete Sampras? I don't know. No, I would have guessed Pete, but no. Bjorn Borg, Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, and Roger Federer. Ah, that would have been an easy one to guess. Yeah, that's

the one I thought you'd go with first. And then I thought you'd guess Borg just because of his record at Wimbledon being so incredible as well. Yeah, what a player. One icon. But yeah, the women are Ash Barty, Martina Hingis, and the aforementioned Amelie Maresmo. Okay, cool. Yeah, it is cool, isn't it? It's very impressive, actually.

It just goes to show, and this comes back to your point on scouting a little bit, like these are the players who are the absolute best in the world at the age of 16 years old, and how few of them then go on to win major. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of them go on to become good professionals, Andy Roddick being an example, but... Yeah, shows what can happen. Development, you know, you are nowhere near developed at 16, other than Roger Federer, obviously, who's always,

always a Don. Yeah, well, exactly. He'll always be Wimbledon's greatest son. Yeah. There has not been anyone better at the tournament ever. Yeah, even if someone ends up winning more than him, and it will happen, all records are made to be broken. it will take a lot for that person to be as beloved and as well -respected and as admired as Roger Federer. Indeed. But this year, it's likely to be the new... I say they're new,

they're not really new anymore. It feels new, but again, because years have flown by recently. Yeah, so you're Yannick Sinners of this world, you're Carlos Alcaraz's. Novak is still in the mix, to be fair to him. Zverev will probably be around, trying to go deep. Kind of those three or four on rotation at the moment. Let's see. There might be a shock. Yeah, and then the women's side, anyone's guess. It's very open, women's

tennis. Always has been, yeah. Well, less so when Serena Williams was playing, to be fair. Less so when Serena Williams was playing, when Martina Navratilova was playing. Steffi Graf in her pomp. It was also extremely good. I say extremely good, she's one of the greatest of all time. Yeah, I mean, that's Wimbledon. We're gearing up. We're ready to go. We mentioned Sue Barker in passing earlier. I wish she was still presenting it. That also just did something for

me. Sounds weirder than I intended it. But yeah. National treasure, that woman. She is a national treasure. McEnroe will hopefully be on comms. Yeah, he's very good. He's very, very good. You cannot be serious. Oh, Sue Barker has the same birthday as me. There you go. That's a fun fact. Oh, that is a fun fact. Obviously not the same birth. Yeah. No. Although, as you mentioned, she's aging like a fine wine, so. We are both getting very weird now. Maybe that's our time

to take our leave. Yeah. Yeah. When would we have said anything else? I don't think so. I just think tune in, watch it. If you're in the United Kingdom, it is the BBC. If you miss anything, it's all on the red button or whatever it is now, iPlayer. And yeah, I don't know where it's going to be broadcast abroad, but as you tell me every week, Jack, I should just tell people to go on Google. Or Bing. Other search engines are available. They are. Where are we going after

Wimbledon has started? Next week, we're going to that bastion of fair play. Yeah, couldn't keep a straight face there. Next week, we're going to the greatest cycling competition on the planet. Probably one of the top handful of sporting events on the planet. Legendary, iconic, controversial, the Tour de France. Le Tour. Yeah, that's going to be fun. It's going to be heavily, heavily focused on doping. It will be. As we mentioned before, you've got a bit of knowledge

on that subject. I've got an interest in it. I think there's a lot of things public. aren't aware of necessarily about the extremes that some of these teams went to obviously there'll be people who are aware but nevertheless we'll bring you some of that information next week and i can't wait yeah we'll be a good one maybe fun right stay cool good luck with that yeah as i melt into my chair and i'll see you soon pal see you soon bye Once again, thank you for

listening to the Sporting Almanac podcast. If you enjoyed it, give it a like, subscribe, rate or comment. But easier than that is always word of mouth. Tell your friends and spread the word. Our theme tune is Oh Yeah by Harmonia Productions. You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at atthesportingalmanac or drop us an email at thesportingalmanacpodcast at gmail .com. If you want to know more about the history of tennis, I can recommend A People's

History of Tennis by David Barry. It was a great source for me on the early history of the game. Next up, it's the Tour de France. Until then, stay curious. As FIFA are currently finding out, sport is nothing without the history that makes it. Goodbye.