1870s
The inaugural Championships are held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, Worple Road, Wimbledon, with an entry of 22 men attracted by an announcement in The Field. A crowd of 200 watch Spencer Gore become the first Champion. READ MORE
1880s
With the Gentlemen’s Singles swiftly proving a success The Championships expand in 1884 to include competitions for Men’s Doubles and Ladies Singles. Maud Watson beats her sister Lilian to become the first female Champion. Two dominant players emerge, Lottie Dod in the ladies' singles and William Renshaw in the gentlemen’s. By now crowds are up to 3,000. READ MORE
1890s
The Doherty brothers, Reggie and Laurie, come to the fore winning nine singles and eight doubles titles either side of the turn of the century. Non-Championship ladies' doubles and mixed doubles events are added. READ MORE
1900s
May Sutton becomes the first overseas Champion, the American winning the ladies' singles in 1905. Two years later Norman Brookes, of Australia, becomes the first foreign male Champion. Britons were successful at the 1908 Olympics, held at Wimbledon, with Major Ritchie and Dorothea Lambert Chambers winning gold. READ MORE
1910s
In 1913 Championship status is accorded to the ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles, but the outbreak of war forced the loss of four years’ Championships. New Zealander Tony Wilding won four titles prior to hostilities but was killed on the Western Front in 1915. READ MORE
1920s
Major developments for the Championships in 1922 with the move from Worple Road to Church Road and the abolition of the Challenge Round. On court the French dominated with the ‘four musketeers’ winning the majority of men’s titles and Suzanne Lenglen thrice recording a clean sweep of ladies, ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles Championships. However, in 1925 an unfortunate mix-up which meant she kept royalty waiting led to her never playing at Wimbledon again. Her male compatriots continued with Henri Cochet’s 1927 final victory against Jean Borotra one for the ages. Rene Lacoste and Jacques Brugnon made up the quartet. In 1926 the future King played in the gentlemen’s doubles. READ MORE
1930s
Fred Perry won a trio of Championships, the first in 1934 ending a quarter-century without a home winner. Perry was lost to the professional circuit before BBC television began their broadcasts from the courts in 1937 but they did capture Dorothy Round’s third title. She, though, was eclipsed by the leading female player of the decade, Helen Wills Moody, who won eight titles from 1927-38. READ MORE
1940s
The return of world war meant there were no Wimbledon Championships until 1946, and when they did resume there were crowd restrictions on Centre Court due to damage caused by a bomb striking the roof in 1940. On court the attention was seized by the risqué clothing worn by Gussie Moran. READ MORE
1950s
Maureen ‘little Mo’ Connolly won a treble of successive Championships, the first as a teenager, and looked like dominating the decade only for a broken leg suffered in a riding accident to bring a premature end to her meteoric career. In her absence Althea Gibson became, in 1957, the first black player to win a singles title at Wimbledon. In the men’s competition Lew Hoad, in 1956, signalled the start of a long period of Australian hegemony winning the first of 13 gentlemen’s titles claimed by the nation in 16 years.
1960s
In 1961, in the first all-British singles final since 1914, Angela Mortimer defeated Christine Truman. In 1969 Ann Jones provided another home winner. In between three giants of the ladies' game, Margaret Smith (later Court), Maria Bueno and Billie-Jean King, all won Championships. The men from Down Under, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and John Newcombe, reigned supreme in the gentlemen’s singles, even after Wimbledon went Open in 1968. READ MORE
1970s
Colour television arrived in time to catch a decade of drama with Bjorn Borg, Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe bringing a new audience to the game. Arthur Ashe became the first black male winner, Evonne Goolagong the first Australian Aboriginal champion.
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova emerged in the female game but erstwhile Champion Billie-Jean King ended the decade partnering Navratilova to ladies' doubles success to claim a record 20th title. Home audiences were delighted by Virginia Wade’s 1977 triumph in front of Queen Elizabeth II in the latter’s silver jubilee year. This was also Wimbledon’s Centenary, a landmark celebrated by opening the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. READ MORE
1980s
John McEnroe’s epic duels with Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and Wimbledon officials took the headlines in the early 80s, then teenage tyro Boris Becker exploded into view. Another German, Steffi Graf, challenged the established order in the ladies' singles ending the six-year reign of Martina Navratilova. On the outside courts Anne White’s bodysuit caught the eye but the biggest shock was a lighting strike on Centre Court in 1985. READ MORE
1990s
Steffi Graf and Pete Sampras reigned on the lawns of SW19, taking more than half the titles on offer, but among those that got away no winner was more popular than Jana Novotna in 1998. The Czech's win came a year after she had lost to 16-year-old Martina Hingis and five years after she had cried on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent having lost after being on the brink of victory against Graf. For the first time Middle Sunday was required for play, an experiment swiftly repeated. READ MORE
2000s
Two sisters from the improbable tennis background of the public courts of south-central Los Angeles, Serena and Venus Williams, became the Queens of Centre Court. They won eight of the ten finals, on four occasions beating each other, and benefited from 2007 from the decision to pay equal prize money to men and women. After wild card Goran Ivanisevic gained a popular and unexpected victory the men’s trophy was rarely out of Roger Federer’s hands. READ MORE
2010s
Finally, after 77 years, another British winner, the Scot Andy Murray, who defeated Novak Djokovic in 2013. Murray, beaten in 2012 by Roger Federer, would triumph again in 2016. He also took gold in the 2012 Olympics, held at Wimbledon, defeating Federer in the men’s event, then winning silver in the doubles with Laura Robson. Murray, Federer, Djokovic and the fourth member of the Big Four, Rafael Nadal, won all the men’s titles, usually defeating one of the others in the final. In the ladies’, Serena Williams was dominant, adding another four Championships. On Court 18, in 2010, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played out the longest tennis match anywhere, ever, 11 hours and five minutes, before the American triumphed 70-68 in the fifth set.
