By far the most prestigious of all tennis tournaments in the world is the Wimbledon tournament that is hosted each year by the All England Tennis Association. Renowned for being one of the most traditional of all tennis tournaments it has a long and impressive history. The tournament was first held in 1877 in which the tournament was limited to men's singles. The tournament has grown a great deal since then.
It now has a full complement of tennis styles including women's singles, men's doubles, women's singles and mixed doubles. Each of these tournaments takes place in a single venue. Whilst the early tournaments were held at a small tennis club the modern version has moved to a massive venue in London at which all the tournament matches could be held. The Wimbledon venue has nineteen courts that are used for the tournament. Amongst these there are the two major show courts, centre court and court number one. These courts are reserved purely for this tournament and both has a large number of seats available for spectators.
Despite Wimbledon being situated in England and despite the fact that it is one of the major tournaments in the world it has not been won by a British entrant for a long time. The last male winner from the UK won the singles tournament was Fred Perry who won the tournament in 1936. The latest British female winner was Virginia Wade who took victory in the women's singles competition in 1977. The more recent competitors that have come from Britain have been rather less successful.
Britain goes crazy when the tournament is running and the whole country puts its collective force behind an entrant from their own shores. Sadly in recent years they have been somewhat let down. The most promising recent challenger was English Tim Henman. Sadly despite the public naming a viewing mound in Wimbledon 'Henman Hill' after him he was unsuccessful. The hill was renamed 'Rusedski Ridge' when Greg Rusedski was the most hopeful British candidate and after he failed to win the competition the ridge was renamed 'Murray Mound' after Scottish tennis failure Andrew Murray. Sadly he was the most recent in the long list of British failures and also failed to succeed in the tournament. The country has come to terms with the lack of success in the tournament and it does not affect the popularity of the tournament.
Whilst British players have not had a very impressive impact on the tournament in recent years there have been a number of British players that have made their mark on the tournament. British player William Renshaw is the record holder for the most number of tournament victories. He has in his time won seven Wimbledon titles an accolade that had not been matched until Andre Agassi achieved the same feat in the 90s. The two now share the honour of having won the most titles. Other notable players are the Swiss player Roger Federer who has won an incredible number of five titles consecutively. This has been matched by Bjorn Borg.
Martina Navratilova is the player that has one the most titles ever with seven doubles titles and a further nine singles titles this eclipses anything that any of the men has achieved. The leading doubles player in the tournament is the Australian Todd Woodbridge who has won the doubles tournament nine times.
