Decorum operates on another level at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC). Nestling among the sprawling mansions and leafy roads of Wimbledon in south-west London, the elegantly manicured grass courts, ivy-covered club houses and lavish floral displays incarnate the soul of tennis.
And why not? Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament. At the inaugural event in 1877, 22 men each paid one guinea – (a pound and a shilling) to enter the competition.
Spencer Gore overcame William Marshall 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in the final to lift the trophy which had been donated by the sports magazine The Field.
Gore also took away a prize of 12 guineas. In 1884, the club added the ladies singles to the mix. Maud Watson beat her sister, Lilian, to claim a silver flower basket valued at 20 guineas
On Monday, those competitions will start at the 136th edition of The Championships.
During the fortnight, 128 men and women will vie for some of the most prestigious trophies in the game and the latter day Gore and Watson will stride away with an extra 2.73 million euros in their bank accounts.
Of course, it's not about the cash. It is about lifting one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
Wimbledon, along with the Australian Open in Melbourne, the French Open in Paris and the US Open in New York, differ from the other events on the ATP and WTA circuits.
The winner must negotiate seven ties. While the women retain the best-of-three format as elsewhere on the tour – the men contest the best-of-five set matches.
A completely different exertion. Especially on a rarely used surface.
The Order of Play for Day One at #Wimbledon has been confirmed...
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 1, 2023
Full schedule 👇
Change
In days of yore, the Australian and US Opens were played on grass. But organisers changed to hard courts in Melbourne in 1987 and they did away with the grass in New York in 1974.
Their decisions imbued more cachet on Wimbledon. Not that the event needed any help. The insistence on all-white kit, referring to players as Mr or Miss and serving weapon-grade tonnes of strawberries and cream.
The strawberries are hand-picked at dawn and delivered on the morning of each day’s play, boast the organisers. The cream is brought in from a dairy in the west of England.
Why? The theory goes that the combination became synonymous with the competition because spectators at the inaugural final were offered the pairing as the event fell at the high point of the strawberry season.
And that mix was chosen because Cardinal Thomas Wolsey – a mover and a shaker in the court of King Henry VIII – served strawberries and cream together at a banquet for the king in 1509.
And Wolsey had a couple of tennis courts at his pad – Hampton Court Palace – which is a punnet's throw away from Wimbledon.
It all adds to the mythology. Which is precisely what Novak Djokovic will be attempting to do during this year's fortnight.
Record
The 36-year-old Serb will endeavour to win an eighth title and draw level with Roger Federer's mark.
Djokovic would also extend his record to 24 Grand Slam singles trophies. And edge himself closer to completing a calendar Grand Slam – an exploit that has not been achieved since Rod Laver in 1969.
"I saw a statistic that Novak has won more matches at Wimbledon than the other top 20 players combined," said world number one Carlos Alcaraz after his victory at the Queen's Club in west London.
"What can I say about that? Novak is the main favourite to win Wimbledon, that's obvious."
Alcaraz will be the men's top seed after returning to the head of the ATP rankings following his success at Queen's – his first crown on a grass court. The 20-year-old Spaniard will open against the French veteran Jérémy Chardy.
While Djokovic remains the most likely candidate in the men's draw, it appears more open in the women's singles tournament.
In the 2022 final, Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan beat Ons Jabeur from Tunisia to brandish the Venus Rosewater Dish.
Potential
In the prelude to the start of the tournament, Rybakina continued to struggle with the effects of a virus that struck her down during the French Open in Paris in early June.
The 24-year-old pulled out of the Eastbourne International in southern England saying she needed to rest to have a chance to defend her crown.
Seeded third, she will play the American Shelby Rogers.
Iga Swiatek, the world number one, lifted the girl's title in 2018, but has yet to repeat such pyrotechnics at the senior level. She will take on Lin Zhu from China who has won only once in her four previous visits to Wimbledon.
Swiatek says she expects to be fit despite pulling out of the Bad Homburg Open on Friday with a fever and suspected food poisoning.
The Pole has been drawn to take on the second seed Aryna Sabalenka in the final on 15 July. The pair were also anointed for the showdown at the French Open but Sabalenka fluffed her lines in the semi-final against Karolina Muchova.
Sabalenka will open against the unseeded Hungarian Panna Udvardy. And just to ensure the thrills and spills remain on the courts and between the players, the organisers say security measures have been revamped to thwart any possible shenanigans from the environmental protesters who interrupted the second cricket Test between England and Australia on Wednesday.
An activist scattered orange powder on the outfield at Lord's in central London to add another publicity coup for the campaigners who have targeted May's Premiership Rugby final at Twickenham as well as the World Snooker Championship and the Grand National horse race in April.
“We have plans in place to mitigate the risks working in partnership with specialist agencies and the Metropolitan Police," said Michelle Dite, the AELTC's operations director.
"“The safety and security of all our players, colleagues and visitors is paramount," Dite added. "Should an incident occur the appropriate specialist teams will respond.”
Those teams are unlikely to be dressed in white. But they'll definitely sort out the miscreants and the disturbance with the utmost propriety.
