Wimbledon Championships 1877

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Wimbledon Championships 1877 ►
Date: July 9 - July 16, 1877
Edition: 1st  Wimbledon Championships
Place: London
Covering: race
winner
Men's singles : United Kingdom 1801United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Spencer Gore
Grand Slams 1877
Engraving of the Wimbledon Championships 1877

The first Wimbledon Championships were held from July 9 to 16, 1877 on what was then the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on Worple Road in London . In the tournament, which was organized exclusively as a men's individual, 22 participants registered, mainly real tennis players , who each had to pay an entry fee of one guinea . The prize money for the winners was 12 guineas and a silver cup worth 25 guineas donated by The Field magazine . The second and third place winners received prizes worth seven and three guineas.

prehistory

The All England Club was founded in 1868 as a croquet club. In 1869 the association rented a meadow on Worple Road for this purpose at a price of £ 50 the first year, £ 75 the next and £ 100 from the third year. The site was then in an agricultural area; In 1870, the owner of a neighboring property was instructed to erect a fence so that his cattle could not graze on the croquet field. In addition, a gardener was employed to look after the meadow.

In February 1875, at a club meeting at the suggestion of President Henry Jones , it was decided to build a first field for lawn tennis and badminton on the area, which was followed a year later by four more tennis courts. In April 1877 the club adopted Lawn Tennis in his name and a first tournament was prepared for July of the same year. In the run-up to the tournament , the tennis rules were set by a rules committee consisting of Julian Marshall , Henry Jones and Charles Gilbert Heathcote . The revenue from the tournament was supposed to be used to repair a defective lawn roller for the croquet game .

The first public announcement of the tournament appeared in the sports magazine The Field on June 9, 1877, and was primarily aimed at players:

“The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, propose to hold a lawn tennis meeting, open to all amateurs, on Monday, July 9th and following days. Entrance fee, £ 1 1s 0 d . Two prices will be given - one gold champion prize to the winner, one silver to the second player. "

- Henry Jones, Hon. Sec of the Lawn Tennis sub-committee

Shortly before the tournament began, another announcement was published on July 6th in The Times newspaper :

"Next week at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club Ground a Lawn Tennis Championship Meeting will be held. The ground is situated close to the Wimbledon Station on the South Western Railway, and is sufficiently large for the erection of 30 "courts". On each day the competition will begin at 3.30, the first ties, of course, beginning on Monday. The Hon. Sec. of the meeting will officiate as referee. The entries are numerous. "

Contrary to the announcement, the area on Worple Road only offered space for 12 tennis courts. At this year's tournament, around five fields were probably built.

The tournament was actually only scheduled for four days. In particular, the area was required for a croquet game between the teams from Eton College and Harrow School the following Friday and Saturday .

regulate

The hourglass-shaped field envisaged by the "inventor" of tennis, Walter Clopton Wingfield , and adopted by the Marylebone Cricket Club in a first revision of the rules in 1875 was discarded, and instead a rectangular (single) field of the size (still common today) introduced by 27 by 78 feet . The service line was 26 feet from the net. The height of the net was set at 5 feet (about 1.5 m) at the posts and 3 feet (0.91 m) in the center. The balls were required to be 2 1/4 to 2 5/8 inches (about 5.7-6.7 cm) in diameter and weigh 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 ounces (about 35-42 g). If the ball went into the net on service or did not land in the service area, the player could repeat the service once. The server had to be one foot behind the baseline. In contrast to the rules established in 1875, in which a game went up to 15 points and a score of 14:14 was played with a difference of two points, the counting method from real tennis (which corresponds to today's counting method in tennis) was now completely adopted .

It was played on three winning sets. A set was won as soon as a player could win six games. Only in the final one should play with a score of 5: 5 in one set on two games difference, but this did not happen this year.

Men's singles

The draw of the players took place on Saturday, July 7th. William Cecil Marshall received a bye in the semifinals . The system still used today, according to which all byes are divided into the first round of a tournament, was only introduced in 1885.

The following Monday, under the supervision of referee Henry Jones, the ten games of the first round were held in good weather. The games of the round of 16 followed on Tuesday, and the quarter-finals were held a day later. On Thursday, however, the weather worsened so that only the semi-finals could be played. The final was scheduled for Monday, July 16, because of the croquet game that would take place in the following days. However, since it was raining that day too, the final was postponed again for three days.

On Thursday, July 19, about 200 spectators finally watched the final between Spencer Gore and William Cecil Marshall for an entry fee of one shilling . Gore prevailed against Marshall 6: 1, 6: 2 and 6: 4.

literature

  • H. Gillmeister: cultural history of tennis. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7705-2618-X .
  • L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. Guinness World Records Ltd, London 1977, ISBN 0-900424-71-0 .

Web links

Commons : Wimbledon Championships 1877  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ J. Parsons, H. Wancke: The Tennis Book. Carlton Books, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-78097-012-7 , p. 159.
  2. ↑ H. Gillmeister: cultural history of tennis. 1990, p. 244.
  3. ↑ at that time corresponded to a pound and a shilling
  4. ^ A b H. Gillmeister: Cultural history of tennis. 1990, p. 241 ff.
  5. ^ L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. 1977, p. 14.
  6. ^ All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club , the order of Croqet and Lawn Tennis was not reversed until a few years later
  7. ↑ a b c J. Heathcote et al .: Tennis. Lawn tennis. Racquets. Fives. Longmans, Green & Co., London 1901, p. 142 (online)
  8. ↑ "The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, proposes a lawn tennis meeting for Monday, July 9th and the following days, to which all amateurs are allowed. Entry fee £ 1 1 s 0 d . Two prizes are awarded - a gold prize for the master, a silver prize for the second player. ”L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. 1977, p. 17.
  9. ^ "A lawn tennis tournament will be held next week on the grounds of the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. The site is near Wimbledon Station on the South-Western Railway line and is large enough to accommodate 30 "playing fields". The competition starts every day at 3:30 a.m., the first games of course begin on Monday. The honorary manager will act as an arbitrator. There are a lot of registrations. ”L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. 1977, p. 17.
  10. ↑ a b L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. 1977, p. 17.
  11. ^ A b J. Heathcote et al .: Tennis. Lawn tennis. Racquets. Fives. 1901, p. 139.
  12. ↑ H. Gillmeister: cultural history of tennis. 1990, p. 238.
  13. ↑ 21 feet today
  14. ^ L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. 1977, p. 20.
  15. ^ History of the Championships. All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, 2011, accessed September 27, 2012 .