Interesting Facts

Tickets for the Men's Final at Wimbledon were changing hands for £71,000 a pair, over 165 times the face value! (I was surprised to hear this, as I had been told you weren't allowed to resell tickets, but seemingly greedy ticket touting is still a problem at Wimbledon, as debenture holders are allowed to resell their seats, only 'ordinary' ticket holders are forbidden from doing so. In finance a debenture is an unsecured loan certificate issued by a company, backed by general credit rather than by specified assets, but a large number of sporting organisations issue debentures to raise money.  Wimbledon Debentures are issued by The All England Club every five years to raise funds for capital expenditure. A similar program of debentures is also in place for No. 1 Court. The Centre Court debentures cover periods of five years. Each Debenture Holder automatically receives one Centre Court ticket for every day of The Lawn Tennis Championships during the relevant p...

Well, if you hadn't already heard, Andy Murray won Wimbledon yesterday (7th July 2013).  (If you have been following the British media, you might have the impression that he's the first Brit to win in 77 years, since Fred Perry's 1936 win at the All England Club, and the first Scot to win since Harold Mahony in 1896. Or is he? Actually he's the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936. There have been quite a few British ladies that have been Wimbledon champions: Dorothy Round Little won in 1937, Angela Mortimer Barrett won in 1961 and Ann Haydon Jones won in 1969, and of course, British player Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977. Well done ladies.  Your success has not been forgotten, and you will always be British winners.)

At Wimbledon yesterday four things happened. Federer won his 7th Wimbledon title and he won his 17th Grand Slam title. Whilst Andy Murray was the first Brit to play in a final since 1938 and the first Scot in over 100 years (in unity there is strength). (But things are a bit different nowadays. When Bunny Austin, became the last British runner-up in 1938 he was given the princely sum of a fiver. Yesterday, Mr Murray won £575,000.  Even Fred Perry, who won Wimbledon in 1936 only got a tenner, a tie, and a nice line in polo shirts.  Surely inflation hasn't been that bad!)

He was born Aug. 8, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland. Roger Federer was 18 when he won his first Grand Slam match in the first round of the Australian Open. Roger Federer was 19 when he won his first career title. He is the only player to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open consecutively three straight years. In 2001 he ended Pete Sampras' 31-match winning streak at Wimbledon in the fourth round before losing in the quarter-finals. His 2009 French Open win makes him only the sixth man to have won all four grand slam titles. The other five are: Fred Perry, Don Budge, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Andre Agassi. He's won a record 15th grand slam title after winning Wimbledon today, with a 5-7 7-6(6) 7-6(5) 3-6 16-14 defeat of American sixth seed Andy Roddick. His other wins are: Wimbledon, 2003-2007, 2009; US Open 2004-2008; Australian Open 2004, 2006, 2007; French Open 2009.

According to a spokesperson for the All England Club, physical attractiveness is taken into consideration when deciding who gets to play centre court at Wimbledon. (This only seems to apply to the ladies. In the men's tournament, five-times winner Roger Federer and British hope Andy Murray invariably play on Centre. But, after Federer left the court on Friday, the next match was Victoria Azarenka of Belarus against Romania's Sorana Cirstea. While both 19-year-olds have top form in the glamour department, Miss Cirstea was seeded 28 while Miss Azarenka, who won, is ranked and seeded eighth. That same day, second seed Serena Williams was relegated to the new No 2 Court for her win over Italian Roberta Vinci. On Wednesday, Centre delivered exactly that - the so-called Battle of the Babes between unseeded Gisela Dulko (world ranking 45) and unseeded Maria Sharapova (ranking 60). Then on Thursday, ninth seed Caroline Wozniacki defeated Russian Maria Kirilenko, 59 in the wor...

If you reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, you get free tea at the tournament for life. (Basically you join the ranks of Wimbledon's Last Eight Club, which was formed in 1986 as part of the 100th Championship celebrations. The club is open only to those who have contested a singles quarter-final or doubles semi-final at Wimbledon.)