5 things we can learn by watching the Wimbledon Championships
The 2016 Wimbledon tournament is well underway, and we can see that there are a number of youngsters going toe-to-toe with the big guns. The likes of James Ward, Kyle Edmund, Ruben Bemelmans, Alexander Ward, Marcus Willis and others have the honour of playing against the likes of Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Roger Federer, and for many of them this chance is a dream come true.
These youngsters grew up with the names of Federer and Djokovic on their lips and they idolized them, so getting the opportunity to play against them is no small accomplishment. Even if they get swatted aside during the match, that would not matter much because they would get a lot of exposure and lessons from the experience.
But it's not just young tennis players who can learn a lot from Wimbledon; the fans watching at home can imbibe plenty of great lessons too. So without further ado here are 5 things that we can learn from the Wimbledon Championships:
(To get a taste of Wimbledon right in your home, you can buy the official Wimbledon towel from the Welspun store).
1. The rich history of the tournament
Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and it remains the only Grand Slam to be played on grasscourts. The Australian Open and US Open are both played on hardcourt, while the French Open is played on clay.
The uniqueness of the surface is not the only thing that sets Wimbledon apart though. Right since its inception in 1877, Wimbledon has been considered the Holy Grail of tennis – the granddaddy of all tennis events. While it is not officially the most important tournament of the year, there is little doubting its pre-eminence in the consciousness of both players and historians.
There have been plenty of historic moments on the court at SW19 too. Wimbledon’s renamed Court No. 3 was notoriously nicknamed as the Graveyard of Champions because a number of world champions suffered shock first round exits like John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters and Maria Sharapova, to name a few. And arguably the two greatest matches of all time - the 1980 final between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, and the 2008 final between Federer and Nadal – were both played at Wimbledon!