Need starting your Monday morning cheery and and gamely? How about purple and dark green colors, strict dress code, traditional strawberries and cream (Served in punnets of not less than 10 berries and fresh cream, and every strawberry is of the highest quality grown at the county of Kent) – and stunning comebacks, alleys and serves, dramatic wins and fantastic tournament of Wimbledon? Pretty good week starting, isn’t it?

Wimbledon is the largest and the oldest tennis annual championship carried out in Europe. Wimbledon, a suburb of London, where this tournament has been first held in 1877, gave the name of the championship. Originally it was a men’s tennis tournament, but later women had been permitted to contest and the Ladies’ Singles was started in 1884. Currently the Wimbledon Championships is considered to be the most prestigious competition, tickets may cost up to several hundred of pounds, but at the first Wimbledon the spectators paid only one shilling an entry fee, and Spencer Gore, the winner, got only 12 guineas as the prize money and a silver trophy cup. A terrible thing is this inflation, lol!

Out of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, Wimbledon is the only one played on grass courts. Grass consists of 100 percent rye grass, reseeded every year, a cut height of 8mm. The fortnight during the Wimbledon championship is a busy season for falconry business. Hawk owners use their birds to keep pigeons away from Wimbledon courts. Hawks do not kill vermin; they frighten them away to secure tournaments from being disrupting. Wimbledon is traditionally under the Royal patronage and players are required to bow or curtsy if Their Majesties are present in the Royal Box.
What kind of trophy does the winner get? The very Wimbledon Trophy is the victory symbol of the tournament. “While the men win a cup, the ladies win a dish”. The Gentleman’s Trophy is a silver cup with a couple of handles and a pineapple on the top. The Ladies Trophy is called “The Venus Rosewater Dish” and is a silver tray, decorated with mythological motifs. Traditionally the winners do not keep their trophies, they are awarded by His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent and the trophies then remain in the museum of All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The winners for all that receive the replicas of their trophies.

The word of Wimbledon goes hand by hand with the names of Roger Federer, Serena and Venus Williams, Mike Bryan, Rafael Nadal, Boris Becker and Steffi Graff, Andre Agassi and many other names. What names will appear on Wimbledon “List of Fame” this year? Russian ladies are crazy about this kind of sport and play tennis well as a rule.