‘Always Like Never Before’ is the rallying cry of The Championships at Wimbledon. This year the saying has certainly manifested the opening-up of the draws as familiar faces, the odd world No.1 and former champions have caught an early flight home.
As results stand on Day 10, and with the exception of the wheelchair events, only two draws still feature the defending champions as spelled out on the 2023 roll of honour: Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s singles and the mixed doubles pairing of Mate Pavic from Croatia and Lyudmyla Kichenok from Ukraine.
It’s significant to note that one half of last year’s victorious men’s and women’s doubles partnerships are still on course to relive that moment when they received the trophy for their excursions on Centre Court.
Great Britain’s Neal Skupski will battle for a semi-final berth, with new partner Michael Venus of New Zealand, as will Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), who’s playing alongside the Belgian Elise Mertens.
In contrast, ‘déjà vu’ was the theme of The Championships 40 years ago when, for the only time in Wimbledon history, all five of the main titles were retained by the holders from the previous year.
Even more remarkably, the 1984 ladies’ and men’s singles champions were also one half of the victorious ladies’ and men’s doubles partnerships.
In a stratospherically trailblazing year for Americans (in October 1984, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first US woman to perform a spacewalk from aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger), John McEnroe won his third and final Wimbledon singles title, emphatically beating his compatriot Jimmy Connors for the loss of only four games.
Martina Navratilova, who’d been granted US citizenship three years earlier, beat fellow American Chris Evert.
McEnroe with Peter Fleming had harder work over five sets to claim the doubles trophy from the Aussies Pat Cash and Paul McNamee – which made it a hat-trick for McEnroe in being immortalised on the honours board as singles and men’s double champion in the same year.
Navratilova with Pam Shriver beat yet another pair playing under the star-spangled banner – Kathy Jordan and Anne Smith – for their 11th and 4th Wimbledon titles respectively.
Alas, Jordan was also on the losing side of the mixed doubles final where she and Steve Denton were defeated by Britain’s John Lloyd and Australia’s Wendy Turnbull.
Disappointingly for one fan, the men’s singles final wasn’t déjà vu in all aspects. As David Rutherford writes in The People’s Wimbledon, “I was hoping for two things… Firstly, that the match would be an epic five-setter that would last for hours on end just as the final between the same two players had done two years previously.
“Secondly, I was hoping to witness in person one of John McEnroe’s renowned temperamental outbursts.
“The match simply flew by and was finished in just over an hour – one of the shortest men’s singles finals of all time. I had, however, been lucky enough to witness a masterclass in tennis by McEnroe who simply blew the ageing Connors away in three very short sets. Not only that, John behaved like a perfect gentleman throughout.”
It is 40 years ago, too, since 17 former champions gathered to celebrate the centenary of the first ladies’ singles championship at Wimbledon. The Duke and Duchess of Kent presented a specially commissioned piece of Waterford Crystal to the greats of bygone years.
To honour the milestone, Georgina Clark umpired the final between great rivals and friends, Navratilova and Evert – the first woman in Wimbledon history to umpire a final on the main Show Court.
How the landscape has evolved since 1984. Today the All England Club and its world-famous Fortnight of grass court Grand Slam action is led by a trio of notable women, namely Chair Deborah Jevans, Chief Executive Sally Bolton and Championships Referee Denise Parnell.
