Since 1877, the Championships at Wimbledon has been a quintessentially British experience, featuring Champagne and Pimm's Cup cocktails, strawberries and cream, and the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the impeccably dressed British royal family and celebrity guests, in the Royal Box.
The tournament has also accumulated many strange, wonderful, and fascinating quirks. Here are 11 note-worthy facts you may not know…
1. Wimbledon employs a hawk as official security, and he has his own ID badge!
His name is Rufus. He's a Harris's hawk and has been patrolling the grounds since 2000. His job title is "Bird Scarer." Every morning before play begins, Rufus flies laps around the courts to terrify pigeons into staying away for the rest of the day — his mere presence is enough; he doesn't actually hunt them. Rufus was kidnapped in 2012 (the Daily Mail's headline: "Game, Set and Snatched"), found safe three days later in a local park, and returned to work without missing another day since. He is, by every account, an absolute diva, and a Wimbledon fixture!
2. The grass is cut to exactly 8 millimeters, every single day of the tournament.
A dedicated groundskeeping team vacuums, mops, and hand-manicures the courts daily to maintain it. When architects designed Centre Court's retractable roof, they spent two years running computer models to determine how to avoid blocking the sunlight the grass needs to survive. The lead architect's quote on the project: "The grass is sacred."
3. There is no apostrophe in the tournament’s name.
It's "The Championships, Wimbledon" — not "Championship's." The apostrophe was deliberately dropped early on for simplicity, and it stuck.
4. Around 55,000 tennis balls are used every single tournament.
Balls are swapped out after the first 7 games of a match, then every 9 games after that: heavy hitting reduces the internal air pressure and changes the bounce, which means the useful competitive lifespan of a single Wimbledon tennis ball is roughly 20 minutes.
5. Only one royal has played at Wimbledon.
In 1926, the Duke of York — later King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II — competed in the men's doubles with his friend Sir Louis Greig. He lost in the first round, in a performance described as "fairly ignominious." He remains the only member of the British royal family to have ever competed in the Championships.
6. Centre Court was hit by five bombs during World War II.
During World War I, the grounds were used as a farm to raise livestock and grow vegetables. During World War II, Wimbledon became a base for fire and ambulance services, and even suffered bomb damage: Centre Court was hit by five bombs, and incredibly, the tournament resumed just four years after the war ended.
7. The All England Club began as a croquet club.
Founded in 1868 as the All England Croquet Club, tennis was introduced in 1877 because the club needed a way to attract more members. The first-ever championships were "The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club Meeting." Spencer Gore won the tournament, taking home 12 guineas in prize money and a silver trophy. Maud Watson was the first female Wimbledon champion, in 1885.
8. There used to be a mandatory day off in the middle of the tournament.
For decades, Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam that featured a rest day, with no matches played on the middle Sunday of the tournament, broken only four times (1991, 1997, 2004, 2016) due to rain backlogs. The tradition ended for good in 2022, marking one of the most significant modern changes in Wimbledon's history.
9. Human line judges endured for 147 years.
2025 was the first year in Wimbledon's history that all line calls were made electronically, using more than 400 cameras across every court. The person shouting "OUT!" — as much a part of the visual furniture of Wimbledon as the grass itself — is no longer part of the tournament.
10. Until 2003, players had to bow or curtsy to the Royal Box.
Every player entering or leaving Centre Court was required to bow or curtsy to any royal family member seated in the Royal Box — a tradition finally scrapped by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. Now it's only required if the monarch or the Prince of Wales specifically is in attendance.
11. The longest tennis match ever played happened at Wimbledon! In 2010, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played a first-round match on Court 18 that lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over three days. The fifth set alone took 8 hours and 11 minutes — longer than any complete match in tennis history up to that point. Combined, the two men hit 216 aces (the previous record was 78). The electronic scoreboard, which was programmed to display scores up to 47-47, broke! Final score: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68.
When Isner finally won, he threw his racquet across the court and collapsed onto the grass. There's a plaque on Court 18 commemorating it. HBO made a mockumentary about it. The very next year, the two men were drawn against each other again, in the first round, at Wimbledon, but completed that match in two hours and three minutes.
Due to rule changes since 2019, this record can mathematically never be broken: a 10-point tie-break is now used to decide matches that reach 6-6 in the final set, i.e. the third set for women and fifth set for men. During the tournament, any set other than the final set that reaches 6-6 is decided by a first-to-seven tie-break.
