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 The
First Wimbledon Tennis Championships 1877
Wimbledon
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The Wimbledon Tennis Championships
is probably the best known and most prestigious tennis championship
in the world. Who could have foreseen in 1877, when it started,
that it would become such a phenomenally important and popular
event?
At that time, the club was
known as the All England Croquet Club and it was decided
to include tennis in its activities and then to hold tennis
championships because the game was overtaking croquet in
popularity. The championship wasn't held in anything like
the imposing premises we see today. The club used rented
ground in Worple Road, Wimbledon, only moving to its present
location in 1922.
Of course in the 1870s it
was unthinkable that women would play in a tennis tournament.
The event was for men only and there were just 22 competitors
competing for a silver cup worth 25 guineas (just over £26
or about $33).
All the players were amateurs
and they played tennis for pleasure along with a number
of other sports.
 Tennis
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In those more sedate times,
the matter of dress was important. Men were requested not
to play in shirtsleeves if there were ladies around and
to wear shoes without heels. They had wooden rackets with
much smaller heads than those used today while the balls
were covered with flannel which was sown on by hand.
The rules of the game had
been devised by the Marylebone Cricket Club which also controlled
the game of 'real tennis'. When the All England Croquet
Club decided on the first championship, they also revised
the rules bringing them much closer to those used in the
game we see today.
At that first championship
there were only 200 spectators who paid one shilling each
for admission while competitors paid one guinea (£1.05)
each for entrance into the tournament.
The first heats were played
on Monday 9th July and the semi-finals on the following
Thursday. The final was planned for Monday 16th July because
of the much more important Eton v Harrow cricket match at
Lords scheduled for the weekend. As has often happened since,
it rained on the Monday so the first ever Wimbledon Men's
Single Final was played on Thursday 19th July. It was won
by W. Spencer Gore, aged 27, with a convincing score of
6-1, 6-2, 6-4.
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Copyright © 2004
by Carol Fisher. All Rights Reserved
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