1st

  •  BBC 2 began transmissions in colour in Britain in 1967 with nearly seven hours’ coverage of the Wimbledon lawn tennis championships.
  • In 1977  Virginia Wade beat Betty Stove to win the Ladies’ Single title at Wimbledon in, appropriately Her Majesty the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Year.
  • Joachim Johansson Swedish tennis player was born on this day in 1982.  He reached the semi-finals of the 2004 US Open, won 3 singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 9 in February 2005. His father, Leif, was also a tennis player and represented Sweden in the Davis Cup in the 1970s.  He played in the 2004 Olympic singles tournament finishing in 17th position.  He once held the record for the most aces served in one match as he aced Andre Agassi in the 4th round of the 2005 Australian Open – though he still lost the match in four sets

2nd

  • Today  in 1904 French lawn tennis star Rene Lacoste was born. Named as World number one in 1926 and 1927, he is probably more notably known for the Lacoste clothing brand, which started in 1929 with a tennis shirt bearing the logo of a crocodile [or alligator], taken from Lacsote’s nickname, with various stories surrounding the origin of the name. Besides the shirt, Lacoste also revolutionized the tennis world by inventing the first steel racket in 1936. On the court, Lacoste was highly successful, together with three other French players Borotra, Cochet and Brugnon, dubbed the “Four Musketeers”, he won the Davis Cup in 1927 and 1928. He took three singles titles at Roland Garros, and two at Wimbledon and the US Open. In addition, he won three Grand Slam doubles titles and a bronze medal at the 1924 Paris Olympics with partner Jean Borotra. In 1929, he married French golfer Simone de la Chaume. Their daughter, Catherine Lacoste, won the US Women’s Open in 1967 as a 22-year-old amateur,  playing in only  her third professional golf tournament. She was the second non-American to win an LPGA major after Fay Crocker of Uruguay and she remained the only Frenchwoman to do so until Patricia Meunier-Lebouc won the 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship. To date, she remains the only amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open. Rene died aged 92 on 12th October 1996.
  • Helen Wills-Moody beat Helen Jacobs 6-4, 6-0 in 1938 to win a record eight Wimbledon singles title. The record was not beaten until 1990, by Martina Navratilova.
  • Today in 1996 saw the birth of Austrian tennis player Julia Grabher. She won three singles and seven doubles titles on the ITF tour in her career. In 2018 she reached her best singles ranking of world number 198. On 22 August 2016, she peaked at world number 399 in the doubles rankings. Playing for Austria at the Fed Cup, Grabher has a win–loss record of 1–5 in singles and 2-9 in doubles.

 

3rd

  • The 18th Wimbledon Women’s tennis final saw Charlotte Cooper beat Blanche Bingley: 6-2, 6-2,in 1901.
  • In 1908 at the 25th edition of the Women’s championship at Wimbledon Charlotte Cooper was once again victorious this time getting the better of Miss A Morton (6-4, 6-4).  Miss Moreton lost again the following year, 1909, this time succumbing to Dora Boothby in 3 sets: 6-4, 4-6, 8-6.
  • In 1920 ‘Big’ Bill Tilden beat Gerald Patterson of Australia to become the first American winner of the men’s singles title at Wimbledon
  • The  final of the 100th Wimbledon Women’s Open in 1993 saw Steffi Graf winning against a tearful Jana Novotna 7-6, 1-6, 6-4.
  • Lewis Hoad, former Australian number one, died on this day in 1994. Born in 1934, he won four Grand Slam tournaments as an amateur (Australian, French and twice Wimbledon) and was a member of the Australian team that won the Davis Cup four times between 1952 and 1956. He turned professional in July 1957 and won the Forest Hills Tournament of Champions event in 1959. He also won the Ampol Tournament of Champions at Kooyong in 1958, the richest tournament of the era. For five straight years, beginning in 1952, he was ranked in the world top 10 for amateurs, reaching the World No. 1 spot in 1956 and became the first tennis player to earn over $1 million from playing tennis. Serious back problems plagued his career, probably caused by a weight-lifting exercise he devised in 1954, particularly after he turned professional, and led to his effective retirement from tennis in 1967 although he made sporadic comebacks, enticed by the advent of the open era in 1968. Following his retirement in 1972 he and his wife Jenny operated a tennis resort, Lew Hoad’s Campo de Tenis in Fuengirola, Spain, near Málaga.

 

4th

  • Alice Dorothy Head Knode  was born on this day in 1925. July 4, 1925 An American tennis player who reached the women’s singles final of the French Championships in 1955 (losing to Angela Mortimer Barrett in three sets) and 1957 (losing to Shirley Bloomer Brasher in straight sets). She reached the semifinals of six other Grand Slam singles tournaments from 1952 through 1957.
  • Pam Shriver born today in 1962 is a former American professional tennis player known primarily as a doubles specialist with success also as a singles player. She currently is a tennis broadcaster for ESPN. During the 1980s and 1990s, she won 133 titles, including 21 women’s singles titles, 111 women’s doubles titles and one mixed doubles title. In Grand Slam tournaments, Pam won 21 doubles titles and one mixed doubles title. She also won a women’s doubles gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul with Zina Garrison as her partner.
  • American professional tennis player, Jill Craybas, was born on this day in 1974. At 39 years of age, she was one of the oldest players on the WTA Tour, as well as the longest serving, having turned pro in 1996. From the 2000 US Open to the 2011 US Open, Craybas competed in 45 consecutive Grand Slam main draws, her best result coming in the 2005 Wimbledon Championships where she reached the fourth round which included wins over Marion Bartoli and Serena Williams. Craybas was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She received an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she played for coach Andy Brandi’s Florida Gators women’s tennis team in National Collegiate Athletics Association NCAA) and Southeastern Conference (SEC) competition from 1993 to 1996. As a senior in 1996, she won the NCAA women’s singles tennis championship. She was the 1995–96 recipient of the Honda Sports Award for Tennis, recognising her as the outstanding collegiate female tennis player of the year. Craybas graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications in 1996, and has said in interviews that she hopes to enter film or television production when her playing career ends. She was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a “Gator Great” in 2008. Craybas credits her achievements to her long-time coach, Raja Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri has worked with her from the start of her tennis career. Craybas turned professional in 1996. She has won one WTA title at the Tokyo Japan Open. Craybas represented the United States at the 2008   Olympics in the singles. She became the last qualifier for the event, replacing Tamira Paszek of Austria. The opening came available when fellow American Ashley Harkleroad elected to skip the games after she became pregnant. At the US Open 2013, Craybas announced her retirement from tennis.

 

5th

  • Dwight F Davis, who was born in 1876, was the man who allegedly gave the Davis Cup to tennis, (see the work of Dr Simon Eaves & Dr Rob Lake whose research disputes this claim, see links on Playing Pasts here – bit.ly/2WOSBoQ and bit.ly/2KnGYmX
  • In 1904, at the 4th Davis Cup the British Isles beat Belgium at Wimbledon, 5-0. There have been some notable achievements at Wimbledon on 5th July in bygone years:
  • In 1906 at the 30th installment of the Men’s Tennis Championships Laurence Doherty beat Frank Riseley (6-4 4-6 6-2 6-3)
  • In 1919 Suzanne Lenglen became the first non-English speaking ladies’ champion; it was the first of five consecutive titles for the French woman.
  • The 50th Men’s Title was played for in 1930 with Bill Tilden getting the better of W Allison in 3 sets 6-3, 9-7, 6-4.
  • In 1952 ‘Little Mo’, Maureen Connolly, won the ladies crown at the age of 17, beating Louise Brough.
  • Arthur Ashe became the first black men’s champion in 1975 when he beat Jimmy Connors.
  • In 1980 Bjorn Borg won his fifth consecutive title, getting the better of John McEnroe in a four-hour five-set cliff-hanger rated as one of the best Wimbledon finals of all time and becoming the first male tennis player to win the championships five times in succession [1976-1980].

 

6th

  • The Wimbledon crowd at the 60th Men’s Tennis final in 1946 were treated to a 5 set thriller when Yvon Petra claimed the title after beating G Brown: 6-2, 6-4, 7-9, 5-7, 6-4.  
  • It was in 1957 when American Althea Gibson became the first black Wimbledon champion when she beat Darlene Hard in straight sets to capture the ladies’ singles title.
  • The centenarian Wimbledon Men’s Tennis was celebrated in 1986 and was won by Boris Becker after beating Ivan Lendl in three sets.
  • German tennis player Sarah Gronert, born in 1986, won a total of ten titles on the ITF circuit in her career and her best world ranking of 164 came on 14 May 2012.

7th

  • Born today in 1909, German amateur tennis champion Gottfried von Cramm, won the French Open twice. He was ranked number 2 in the world in 1934 and 1936, and number 1 in the world in 1937. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977,  which considers that he is “most remembered for a gallant effort in defeat against Don Budge in the 1937 Interzone Final at Wimbledon”. Cramm represented Germany during the rise of the Nazi party to power in the 1930s. The Nazi regime attempted to exploit his appearance and skill as a symbol of Aryan supremacy, but he refused to identify with Nazism. He was persecuted as a homosexual by the German government and was jailed briefly in 1938. He figured briefly in the gossip columns as the sixth husband of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress and died on 8th November 1976.
  • Elizabeth Ryan won her 12th Wimbledon doubles title in 1934.
  • In 1973 Billie Jean King beat Chris Evert (6-0 7-5) to win the 80th Wimbledon Women’s Tennis title, this was the first all-American Women’s Wimbledon final.
  • Murraymania hits Britain in 2013 as Scotsman Andy Murray beat Novak Đoković (6-4 7-5 6-4) to become the first British man to win a Wimbledon tennis title since 1936.