On this day, the first Wimbledon Championship started at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. Originally a croquet club founded in 1868 at the height of a croquet craze, in 1875 the club incorporated the infant sport of lawn tennis, introduced by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield and originally called Sphairistikè. At the time of the first championship, the service was underarm and the net was considerably higher than today. The winner of the first edition, Spencer Gores, is recorded as having said, “Lawn tennis will never rank among our great games.” He could not have guessed then that tennis was destined to become a major international sport, that Wimbledon was to become a Mecca for tennis enthusiasts worldwide, and that the only Grand Slam event still to be held on grass courts in the modern era would be Wimbledon.
