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New York Post
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Nearly a third of Americans think they could pass as British
Nearly a third of Americans think they could pass as British, based on their knowledge of UK culture. While 27 percent felt somewhat confident they can nail the British accent, 26 percent admitted they regularly struggle to understand it. This week, they were put to the test when former tennis player and Wimbledon veteran John Isner brought the flavor of The Championships to New York, in a food truck serving strawberries and cream mini cheesecakes. 5 Former tennis player and Wimbledon veteran John Isner brought the flavor of The Championships to New York with a Junior's Cheesecake food truck serving strawberries and cream mini cheesecakes. SWNS 5 27 percent of Americans felt somewhat confident they can do a British accent, but 26 percent admitted they regularly struggle to understand it. SWNS The hilarious clip shows the former-professional attempting his own version of an English accent, with mixed results. He said: 'When it comes to the Brits, Americans across the country feel like they know a thing or two about UK culture, and today I'm 'full of beans' and asking New York City, if they fancy trying a British twist on a New York classic.' The study of 2,000 Americans showed 68 percent have never travelled across the Atlantic, with the main reason people gave to not being able to cross the pond in the future was expense (45 percent). The research was commissioned by The All England Lawn Tennis Club, which stages The Championships, Wimbledon, and is screening the matches from finals weekend at The Hill in New York, in Brooklyn Bridge Park this weekend (July 11 – 13) and has also collaborated with Junior's Cheesecake in the lead-up to the event. Former US tennis player John Isner, who hit the streets of New York in the build up to the event to find out if the locals can walk the walk and talk the talk when it comes to being British, said: 'It's been fantastic to bring a slice of British summer to Manhattan ahead of the finals this weekend.' 5 Isner took to the streets of New York to quiz locals on British culture. SWNS Of those polled, given the chance to catch a flight to watch a sporting event live in the UK, almost a quarter (24 percent) would want to watch The Championships at Wimbledon. As 60 percent believe the tennis tournament is a unique Grand Slam, according to the data. Putting the atmosphere (50 percent), the fact it's played on grass (46 percent) and its charm (36 percent) all among the top reasons why they feel it's special. 5 'As someone who has many fond memories of playing at Wimbledon, I can attest to just how special the atmosphere of The Championships is,' Isner said. SWNS 5 'We are looking forward to once again bringing the action, charm and the strawberries and cream from SW19 to the Hill in New York this summer,' a spokesperson for The All-England Lawn Tennis Club said. SWNS Not to mention the 30 percent who thought the food on offer, with its iconic strawberries and cream was a draw. John continued, 'As someone who has many fond memories of playing at Wimbledon, I can attest to just how special the atmosphere of The Championships is. 'It's brilliant that New Yorkers will have the chance to experience this magic right here in their own city, at Brooklyn Bridge Park this weekend.' A spokesperson for The All-England Lawn Tennis Club added: 'We are looking forward to once again bringing the action, charm and the strawberries and cream from SW19 to the Hill in New York this summer. 'With so many Americans wanting to watch the Championships, but have never been, we are pleased to bring the atmosphere and quintessential Britishness of the event to tennis fans in New York.'
New York Times
09-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
In Wimbledon's tennis paradise, serve should be king but the return reigns
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Ben Shelton gets a lot of attention for his devastating serve. On Monday, he showed why he's been putting all of his attention onto his returns. His fourth-round match against Lorenzo Sonego took a major turn in his favor in the third-set tiebreak, when Sonego, who kept coming up with 130-mile-per-hour serves all afternoon, fired a 129 mph bullet at Shelton's forehand as he tried to keep the set alive. Shelton reared back and cranked a forehand down the line that hit the baseline. Sonego didn't even have time to make a move for it. Advertisement Eleven games later, with Sonego serving to stay in the match, Shelton made sure that didn't happen, with two deep forehand blocks that he would have struggled to get his racket on a year ago. 'I want to be an elite returner,' Shelton said after the 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(1), 7-5 win put him in his first Wimbledon quarterfinal. 'I'm certainly not there yet, but I'm much better than I was when I started out on tour.' And just in time, too. A quality serve is indeed a really good thing to have at Wimbledon, but the ability to return those serves is what separates the good from the great. John Isner, another American who had perhaps the most dangerous serve ever, made the semifinals in 2018. But that was the only year he won more than two matches at the All England Club. On the men's side, even moreso than the women's, being a big server means little in tennis these days if a player's return isn't up to standard. A somewhat predictable cast of big-serving characters plowed through the early rounds this year, but the one still standing, alongside Shelton, is the one who can give a tutorial on returning on grass to anyone who will listen. Taylor Fritz survived two of the biggest servers in the game in the first two rounds in Giovanni Mpetshi-Perricard and Gabriel Diallo. It's not uncommon for Fritz to spend most of his off-day practice sessions returning serve, especially during Wimbledon, where hanging back and taking big cuts at the ball is mostly out of the playbook. Don't be afraid to stand in. Stay firm, shorten the backswing and block the ball back, or even chip it. Get the point going. On every other surface, a short, slow return might as well be followed by a walk to receive the next ball. On grass, it brings people who want to hang on the baseline forward, and gets the biggest servers springing out of their motion and needing to immediately scramble forward. 'There's just too much court to cover with these guys,' Fritz said after the win over Diallo. 'I can use their pace. I don't have to swing at all. I just have to stick my racquet out and be firm with it.' Iga Świątek, who has won five Grand Slam titles and spent 125 weeks at the top of the rankings, mostly views her opponent's serve as the shortest ball she will see during each point. Why not try to jump all over it? Not at Wimbledon this year. Through her first four matches, Świątek has hit just four winners off returns. Yet, she's still winning nearly 40 percent of the points on her opponent's serve, including 57 percent of the return points on second serve. She described her more patient approach as making smart decisions, playing shots 'at 100 percent' without being 'crazy.' Advertisement Świątek is harnessing that patience on return while adding some juice to her own serves. She slammed down 118 miles per hour deliveries on average in her 6-2, 6-3 win over Danielle Collins in the third round, mostly jamming the American with body serves to try to take the block return out of the equation. It worked, against a player in Collins who has one of the better returns in the won her first two matches convincingly and figured to pose a real threat to Świątek. Her technique on grass is to take a couple of steps back, before moving forward as the ball approaches, to put some momentum behind her block. She followed the same strategy against Clara Tauson of Denmark Monday and moved into the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for just the second time in her career. 'I do think sometimes chipping the returns is more effective than, you know, taking a crack at it,' she said. The major downside to cracking a return is that if it does go in, but doesn't win the point outright, the ball will come back too quickly. 'You just chip it or block it. You give yourself a little bit more time and you make the person think,' Collins said. There's no question that chipping back solid, deep returns, or even short ones that bring an opponent to an awkward spot in the middle of the court, isn't exactly the sexiest form of winning tennis. Hitting screaming winners and firing 145 mph serves will make far more highlight reels. It probably won't win a Grand Slam, not these days anyway. Jannik Sinner, the men's world No. 1, basically never misses a return, putting a tournament-leading 78 percent of them back in the court. He has taken the Świątek approach too, and is yet to hit a return winner. That means opponents struggle to find a free point, making the experience of playing him especially exhausting. Novak Djokovic is even better, at 80 percent, with 12 return winners. Advertisement Among the men who played more than one match, they are first and second in points won off their opponents' first serves. Of the players who made the final 16, six of them are in the top 11 in that category. Eleven of the players who made the last 16 are in the top 20 for winning points on an opponent's second serve. Since women don't face serves as hard as the men, they can register higher in some of these categories than the men do. But the same trends are there. Emma Navarro didn't seem like an obvious candidate for success on grass. The world No. 10 is a quality mover with a solid and consistent game. But she had little experience on grass growing up, doesn't often come to the net to close points, and her serve may need more work than any other element of her game. And yet, Navarro made the second week of Wimbledon for a second year in a row. Navarro, who faced serves with less pace, which can also often slide across the grass, described a similar game plan. 'I like to take serves a little bit closer to the baseline on grass and just try to be really strong and stable and use the ground to my advantage,' she said last week. Navarro put 76 percent of her returns back in the court. Mirra Andreeva, who beat Navarro Monday, leads the remaining players at 86 percent. Seven of the players in the last 16 were in the top 20 for points won against the first serve. Navarro led the last 16 in winning 71 percent of the points against the second serve, and she had plenty of company from players who have excelled in that category as well, including Samsonova, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Laura Siegemund, Linda Nosková, Elise Mertens and Andreeva. Siegemund sliced a drop-shot winner off a Madison Keys serve in their third-round match. But it's possible that the biggest success story in this area this year is Shelton, the American lefty with the cannon serve. Ever since he burst onto the tour at the beginning of 2023, everyone around the game expected big things from Shelton on the grass, where his serve figured to be untouchable. Advertisement In his first six matches at Wimbledon, across 2023 and 2024, he only won four, and they all lasted five sets. He kept landing in tiebreaks. He could bomb plenty of serves, but getting returns in the court often looked really hard. This year he has won nine of 10 sets in his four matches, and just four of those sets have gone to tiebreaks. He's returning well enough to cause his opponents stress on their serves, something he has long struggled to do. He's won 31 percent of the points on his opponents' first serve, tying him for fourth among players who made the last 16. He's winning 60 percent of points on their second serve. That's enough to be a pain in the neck. He's also won 94 percent of his service games, tied for third with Sinner. That can make opponents feel like they can't breathe so well, whether Shelton is serving or whether they are, picking them apart in every way he can. 'For me, the game slows down and gets a lot simpler when I'm serving a high first-serve percentage, I'm hitting my spots and I'm putting every return in play,' he said Monday. 'So that's my goal when I walk on the court. It doesn't always end up that way. I didn't serve great today. I was more disappointed in my serving game, and the way that Lorenzo mixes up speeds, spins on a serve, he can get it up to 130, 135. He can also hit the cutter at 95. It was difficult. 'In the moments where I needed it most, I returned well today.'
New York Times
04-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why tennis serve bots, on the verge of extinction, star in their twilight at Wimbledon
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Carlos Alcaraz has won almost everything there is to win in tennis, but he has spent most of 2025 going after one of the sport's least desirable accolades: being labeled a serve bot. At January's Australian Open, Alcaraz wrote, 'Am I a serve bot?' on a camera lens after hitting 14 aces in his second-round win against Yoshihito Nishioka. During his run to the title at last month's HSBC Championships in London, which he won on the back of some supreme serving, he said: 'I'm starting to think I'm a serve bot.' Advertisement As Alcaraz's opening matches at Wimbledon have proved, he is not yet a serve bot. His first serve has wavered in both, but his incredible groundstrokes, volleys and movement have compensated. The serve-bot archetype does not have those skills. The term was coined to describe giants such as John Isner of the U.S. and Croatia's Ivo Karlović, who were perceived as being able to do little other than bang down big serves from their close-to-seven-feet frames. Alcaraz turning it into something aspirational reflects two wider trends in tennis. The first is the reclamation of the term by a new generation of players, all of whom like to log their speed-gun readings, but also want to win the biggest prizes in the sport. The second is that being a serve bot, and having a faster serve than everybody else, is no longer the most important edge in men's tennis. Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, the 6-foot-8 Frenchman, hit the fastest serve in Wimbledon history Monday against Taylor Fritz, another big server who is a fan of discussing what makes a serve bot. Mpetshi Perricard hit a ball at 153 miles per hour (246 kilometers per hour). Fritz blocked it back and won the point. Serving fast has become so de rigueur in men's tennis that having the ability to return the ball is the edge — and being a true bot requires a degree of ineptitude on return to go with the heavy artillery on serve. Having been labelled a serve bot throughout his career, Isner, who reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2018, decided he wanted to break down exactly what the term meant when he retired. So he and his buddies, including Sam Querrey, another serve-reliant American but not quite a bot, came up with a formula. 'We agreed collectively that if you do not break more than 10 percent of the time, you're a serve bot,' Querrey, a former world No. 11 who is covering this year's Wimbledon for ESPN, explained in an interview at the All England Club on Wednesday. Advertisement 'It's more about how infrequently you break serve than it is how good you are at actual serving.' Others will have their own definition, including Alcaraz, who clearly does not long to be bad at breaking serve, but there is some logic to the emphasis on the weakness of the return, especially in the contemporary game. Historically, focusing on just serve quality would mean Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, two of the finest servers in the sport's history, would be labeled as serve bots. That would be patently absurd, even if possessing a serve like theirs to go with their other great talents is what Alcaraz wants. Sampras and Federer won 89 percent of their service games across their careers, and 24 and 27 percent of their return games. Isner and Karlovic won 92 percent each for service games, but 10 and nine percent of return games. To put Alcaraz's longing into contemporary context, the man with the best service-game win percentage over the past year is his great rival Jannik Sinner, with 90.6 percent. Novak Djokovic, a man whose return tends to be eulogized much more than his serve, is fourth, with 89.2 percent. The best players tend to be pretty handy at what is the most important shot in the sport. Alcaraz is down in 12th, on 86 percent, but the most important thing to understand about the twilight of the serve bot is that their prowess on return has become what sets them apart. Sampras was averaging around 120 mph (193 kph) when he won his first Wimbledon title in 1993. That made him one of the most consistent big servers in the game. In 2025, 120 mph is something like the bare minimum, even for players below 75 in the world rankings. Having a fast serve has become so commonplace that even players with the fastest, including Mpetshi Perricard, Fritz, and his compatriots Reilly Opelka and Ben Shelton, largely joke about being bots because they know that their special skill is no longer what can make them stand out when it comes to wins and titles. Advertisement Opelka, a giant server and Isner's natural heir, was also involved in devising the 10 percent formula. 'The stats show it,' he told a few reporters on Tuesday, referring to his and Isner's serve bot status. He added that of the current players, 'me and Mpetshi Perricard are probably the only two bots. Like, true bots.' The numbers back him up. Mpetshi Perricard (7.9 percent) and Opelka (9.1) are the only two ATP players to win less than 10 percent of their return games in the past year. Mpetshi Perricard has taken this to extremes by becoming the first player to go through an entire five-set match without earning a single break point — and then doing it again (first at the Australian Open in January against Gaël Monfils, and then against Fritz at Wimbledon this week). But Mpetshi Perricard's desire to get to tiebreaks and win them appears strategic, at least while he develops his baseline game. He is practicing his serve just 10 per cent of the time, and Fritz acknowledged that Mpetshi Perricard had done him damage from the back of the court, especially for the four sets that were played under the roof. But the American would be a good case study for how to evolve from the old serve bot to the new. Regarded as a one-dimensional server for the early part of his career, Fritz has developed his groundstrokes and movement to become a U.S. Open finalist and top-five player. 'I guess he wouldn't be a serve bot. He would just be a bot,' his good friend and compatriot Tommy Paul said, laughing, on Tuesday. Paul Annacone, one of Fritz's coaches, agreed about his player's evolution. 'Yeah, he did graduate because now his game has different levels,' Annacone said in an interview at Wimbledon on Thursday. Fritz himself uses the term more liberally. 'Anyone who is a good server, they're like a bot. We use it as a compliment just to say that this person has a good serve,' he said in a news conference Tuesday. Fritz, who has won 19.2 percent of his return games in the past year, is way clear of the serve bot threshold, as is his second-round opponent, Gabriel Diallo. Fritz ended up beating Diallo in five sets, with the players serving 27 and 26 aces, but three breaks of serve apiece stopped it from feeling like a serve-bot fest. Paul, meanwhile, praised Opelka and Isner for taking ownership of the term. 'At first, it was used that way (as an insult), maybe like seven years ago, it was used in a bad way. That's how it started, people on Twitter calling Reilly or Isner a serve bot. Advertisement 'They handled it well and changed it into making it funny. Now they make jokes about it.' Querrey confirmed that he, Isner and their friends, including former American world No. 21 Steve Johnson, do have these kinds of conversations, while Opelka gave a great demonstration of this self-deprecation at the Canadian Open in 2021 when he discussed whether Nick Kyrgios would qualify as a serve bot. How do you define a servebot? 🤖@ReillyOpelka discusses (cc @NickKyrgios)#NBO21 — Tennis TV (@TennisTV) August 15, 2021 Opelka's compatriot Shelton is another who would be seen as 'too fun to watch' to be a serve bot, but he has also made a conscious effort to add variety to his game. Shelton called improving his return 'my biggest focus' in a recent interview, and he said on Tuesday: 'I used to be a bot for sure, and I relied on my serve a lot. There are so many great returners, guys who can neutralize pretty much any serve. You have to be able to back it up. 'Having a great serve and getting free points is huge on a surface like this, but year-round, it's important to have a multi-faceted game. 'I don't think it's an insult at all. There are matches when I'm a complete bot, but I don't think that I'm a bot all the time.' Shelton spoke last year about slowing down his serve and going for spots instead, and Fritz echoed this Tuesday when it was put to him that Mpetshi Perricard had said someone could hit a serve at around 168 mph (270 kph) before too long. 'The question I have is: Why? There's no point. It's much better to hit 140 to a spot than just hit the ball and serve as hard as you can,' Fritz said. Players have wanted to avoid the epithet partly because it puts an implied ceiling on what a player can achieve. A genuine serve bot might crack the top 10, but they are not likely to get much higher. Players that have to play a lot of tiebreaks are putting themselves in high variance situations, in a sport where winning just over the half the points — and sometimes fewer — means victory. But on their day, these players can be a real problem, adding a layer of jeopardy to a draw. Advertisement 'Those guys are so dangerous, especially (grass) tournaments like this,' said Annacone, who previously coached Sampras and Federer and agreed on the serve bot ceiling. Britain's Greg Rusedski possessed a mega serve but had holes in the rest of his game. A former world No. 4, he said, 'Please call me a serve bot,' in a recent phone interview. 'But you can't be a serve bot and get to the top five in the world,' Rusedski continued. 'Isner, Karlovic they could not crack into the top five because of their movement.' With serve having been replaced by return as an edge, and the top players in the world seeking to bolster, rather than define, their games by serve improvement, as much as Alcaraz loves to talk about it, the twilight of the true serve bot is well underway, which makes Mpetshi Perricard, only 21 and with so much upside but a pretty major flaw, such an interesting proposition. 'There's an evolution in the serve bot going on right now,' Paul said. 'I think everyone can play. Everyone jokes about it, but Reilly is actually pretty good from the ground. We'll play ground games, and he is right there with me in practice. He'll beat me. Everyone can play tennis.' Paul added: 'You got to be able to do it all. Obviously people who don't have huge serves have to move better, they have to return better. But everyone does everything. The smallest guys are hitting aces, and the biggest guys are making returns now.' Alcaraz, who is looking to win a third straight Wimbledon title, and to ultimately be regarded as the greatest player of all time, is desperate to be given a descriptor once reserved for bullying inferior players. While Mpetshi Perricard, a rising player who fits the archetype, is trying to evolve away from its most pejorative sense while retaining its essential skill. The twilight of the serve bot may be here, but the term's future looks bright.
The Sun
01-07-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Why do Wimbledon players drink from evian water bottles?
IT is important that the Wimbledon stars stay hydrated while they battle on the SW19 courts - and evian water is most certainly the go-to beverage. The iconic All England Lawn Tennis Club has witnessed some historic lengthy encounters over the years. 3 Novak Djokovic 's incredible victory during the 2019 final against Roger Federer springs to mind as it lasted four hours and 57 minutes. But Kevin Anderson's 2018 semi-final triumph over John Isner outdid that as the match went on for seven hours and one minute. However, nothing comes close to the longest tennis match in history which again involved John Isner with the American beating Nicolas Mahut in a contest that lasted went on for 11 hours and five minutes! And its almost guaranteed that at all of these players would have drank from a bottle of Evian water at some stage to keep themselves hydrated. 3 Wimbledon 2025 LIVE - follow all the latest scores and updates from a thrilling fortnight at SW19 Why do Wimbledon players only drink from Evian water bottles? Wimbledon players are often spotted with Evian bottles of water as Evian is the official water of the Championship. Evian has been the proud sponsor of Wimbledon since the 2008 Championships. 3 And for the first time ever, spectators at SW19 can stay hydrated with evian natural mineral water through a unique refill system encouraging refill and reuse behaviour throughout the day. This expands the success of the first-of-its-kind refill system introduced for players last year as part of evian and Wimbledon's joint work to reduce plastic packaging waste during The Championships. The All England Lawn Tennis Club have confirmed that refill stations can be found in six locations across the Grounds; three in food court areas and three mobile carts, as well as additional stations in the Queue. What has been said? evian's spokeperson Gemma Morgan revealed that the company is thrilled to have this new feature during the tournament. Gemma said: "We know that refill plays, and will continue to play, a major role in the way people consume water here in the UK. The response to the player refill system last year was incredibly positive, so we want to expand refill to spectators to explore the potential at a larger scale. 'Through a bespoke solution for Wimbledon, for the first time ever our pristine mountain mineral water will be available for spectators to purchase through a refill system. 'As part of Wimbledon and evian's joint sustainability journey, we have been exploring ways to champion refill and reuse behaviours. So, we are thrilled to be making a significant step forward with this year's refill innovation.' The All England Lawn Tennis Club commented that innovations such as this are key to helping achieve its goal of becoming Environment Positive by 2030."
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Wimbledon 2025: Anniversaries for Serena Williams, Arthur Ashe, Isner-Mahut and COVID
FILE - Security guards at the entrance in front of Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon in London, Monday, June 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth,File) FILE - John Isner of the US and France's Nicolas Mahut, right, pose for a photo next to the scoreboard following their epic men's singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant,Pool,File) FILE - Pete Sampras kisses the trophy, after defeating Australia's Patrick Rafter in the Men's Singles final on the Center Court at Wimbledon Sunday, July 9, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Caulkin,File) FILE - In this July 7, 1990, file photo, Martina Navratilova fights back tears as she poses with her record ninth ladies singles championship trophy at Wimbledon, after defeating Zina Garrison 6-4, 6-1. (AP Photo/Roy Letkey, FIle) FILE - Tennis player Anne White of the U.S. is shown in a tight fitting body suit, which she has been banned from wearing in her resumed match against fellow American Pam Shriver, June 28, 1985. (AP Photo/Seelan Naidoo,File) FILE - Sweden's Bjorn Borg falls to his knees in front of the scoreboard on the Centre Court, Wimbledon, London, July 5, 1980, after beating American John McEnroe, unseen, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-7, 8-6, to take the Mens' Singles Final for the fifth year in succession. (AP Photo/Robert Dear) FILE - In this July 5, 1975, file photo, Arthur Ashe holds the men's singles trophy after defeating fellow American Jimmy Conners in the final of the men's singles championship at the All England Lawn Tennis Championship in Wimbledon, London. (AP Photo/File) FILE - Serena Williams of the United States reacts as she holds up the trophy after winning the women's singles final against Garbine Muguruza of Spain, at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Saturday July 11, 2015. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin,File) FILE - Serena Williams of the United States reacts as she holds up the trophy after winning the women's singles final against Garbine Muguruza of Spain, at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Saturday July 11, 2015. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin,File) FILE - Security guards at the entrance in front of Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon in London, Monday, June 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth,File) FILE - John Isner of the US and France's Nicolas Mahut, right, pose for a photo next to the scoreboard following their epic men's singles match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant,Pool,File) FILE - Pete Sampras kisses the trophy, after defeating Australia's Patrick Rafter in the Men's Singles final on the Center Court at Wimbledon Sunday, July 9, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Caulkin,File) FILE - In this July 7, 1990, file photo, Martina Navratilova fights back tears as she poses with her record ninth ladies singles championship trophy at Wimbledon, after defeating Zina Garrison 6-4, 6-1. (AP Photo/Roy Letkey, FIle) FILE - Tennis player Anne White of the U.S. is shown in a tight fitting body suit, which she has been banned from wearing in her resumed match against fellow American Pam Shriver, June 28, 1985. (AP Photo/Seelan Naidoo,File) FILE - Sweden's Bjorn Borg falls to his knees in front of the scoreboard on the Centre Court, Wimbledon, London, July 5, 1980, after beating American John McEnroe, unseen, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-7, 8-6, to take the Mens' Singles Final for the fifth year in succession. (AP Photo/Robert Dear) FILE - In this July 5, 1975, file photo, Arthur Ashe holds the men's singles trophy after defeating fellow American Jimmy Conners in the final of the men's singles championship at the All England Lawn Tennis Championship in Wimbledon, London. (AP Photo/File) FILE - Serena Williams of the United States reacts as she holds up the trophy after winning the women's singles final against Garbine Muguruza of Spain, at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Saturday July 11, 2015. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin,File) LONDON (AP) — A look at some of the anniversaries this year at Wimbledon: 50 years ago (1975): Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King win Wimbledon Arthur Ashe became the first — and to this day, only — Black man to win the singles title at Wimbledon in 1975, beating defending champion Jimmy Connors 6–1, 6–1, 5–7, 6–4 in the final. Also that year, Billie Jean King easily won her sixth — and, it turned out, last — singles championship at the All England Club, defeating Evonne Goolagong 6-0, 6-1. It also was the 19th of the 20 total Wimbledon trophies (across singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles) that King would win. Advertisement 45 years ago (1980): Bjorn Borg collects his 5th Wimbledon title in a row Bjorn Borg earned his fifth consecutive Wimbledon trophy in 1980, barely getting past rival John McEnroe 1–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–7 (16), 8–6 in a final immediately — and still — considered one of the greatest tennis matches of all time. The fourth-set tiebreaker alone, known as The War of 1816, is still discussed with reverence. 40 years ago (1985): Anne White's white bodysui t at the All England Club Anne White showed up for her first-round Wimbledon match in 1985 against Pam Shriver wearing a full white bodysuit that drew plenty of attention — and criticism. After they split the first two sets, play was called because of darkness. During the break, White was told that the All England Club did not love her original outfit, even if it did comply with the all-white rule, and she wound up wearing more traditional clothing for the third set when action resumed the next day. Shriver won the match. Advertisement 35 years ago (1990): Martina Navratilova wins her 9th Wimbledon trophy A 6-4, 6-1 victory over Zina Garrison in the 1990 final gave Martina Navratilova her record ninth Wimbledon championship. It also was her 18th and last Grand Slam title, equaling rival Chris Evert for the Open era record at the time. 25 years ago (2000): Pete Sampras gets 7th Wimbledon, 13th Slam title Pete Sampras' 2000 Wimbledon title, via a 6–7 (10), 7–6 (5), 6–4, 6–2 victory over Patrick Rafter in the final, gave the American his seventh, and last, trophy at the All England Club and his then-record 13th title from all Grand Slam tournaments. Sampras would win his 14th major at the 2002 U.S. Open, then walk away from the sport. That stood as the men's record until Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic all surpassed it. Advertisement 15 years ago (2010): Isner and Mahut play a 70-68 fifth set at Wimbledon John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest tennis match on record at Wimbledon in 2010, competing for 11 hours, 5 minutes stretched across three days in the first round at the All England Club, until Isner eventually prevailed 70-68 in the fifth set. That was part of the impetus for rules changes that eventually mandated tiebreakers at 6-all in fifth sets of men's matches (and third sets of women's matches) at all four Grand Slam tournaments. 10 years ago (2015): Williams gets a 'Serena Slam' as oldest major champ Serena Williams completed her second self-styled 'Serena Slam' — four Grand Slam titles in a row, although not all within a single season — by winning Wimbledon in 2015. Her 6-4, 6-4 victory over Garbiñe Muguruza in the final made the 33-year-old Williams the oldest woman to win a major singles championship in the Open era. It also set up Williams for a bid at a true Grand Slam — going 4 for 4 at the majors within one calendar year — at the U.S. Open later in 2015. She fell just short, losing to Roberta Vinci in a stunning upset in the semifinals in New York. Advertisement 5 years ago (2020): Wimbledon is canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic Wimbledon was called off in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first time since World War II that the oldest Grand Slam tennis tournament wasn't held. The cancellation was announced in April, with Britain under a nationwide lockdown. Roger Federer offered a one-word commentary on social media, writing simply: 'Devastated.' ___ Howard Fendrich has been the AP's tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: More AP tennis:
