Planning committee votes unanimously against All England Club’s proposals to triple size on to listed park
A London council has rejected plans to build a new 8,000-seat stadium and 38 further tennis courts on a Grade II*-listed park in Wimbledon.
Wandsworth council’s planning committee on Tuesday night voted unanimously to reject the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s plans to almost triple the size of the tennis championship grounds from 17 hectares (42 acres) to 46 hectares.
Continue reading...Device trialled at tournament captures images with camera and projects them into sight line
Rosie Pybus has been to Wimbledon several times and watched her first tennis match this year, thanks to a headset for visually impaired people. She told of the “exhilarating” moment she tested the innovative device, which allows users to watch live action from the stands.
Visually impaired tennis fans at SW19 have been trialling the headsets, which capture images with a camera and project them into a person’s sight line. Users can adjust the images with a remote control.
Continue reading...Emotional two-time champion says he doesn’t know if he will be back and ‘motivation is obviously a big thing’
An emotional Andy Murray hinted that he may have played his last Wimbledon match after his hopes of reaching the third round were dashed on Friday.
The two-time champion spoke of his disappointment after he was defeated by Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, the fifth seed, in five sets as the temperature soared to 29C.
Continue reading...Player donated to Great Ormond Street and apologised to Anna Palus for saying she was drunk during final
Nick Kyrgios has settled a legal case with a spectator he accused of having “about 700 drinks” during this year’s Wimbledon final.
Kyrgios had complained to the umpire about the behaviour of Anna Palus during his four-set defeat by Novak Djokovic on Centre Court.
Continue reading...Campaign wants rule change to allow female players to put on coloured underwear when needed
Campaigners are urging Wimbledon organisers to drop the tournament’s strict all-white dress code over concerns for female players who are menstruating.
A group of protesters wearing white skirts with red undershorts arrived at Wimbledon’s main gate on Saturday, before the ladies’ singles final between Ons Jabeur and Elena Rybakina.
Continue reading...Remarks come after Pat Cash accused Kyrgios of ‘cheating, manipulation and abuse’ at this year’s championships
The Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios has said that Australia’s tennis legends have a “sick obsession with tearing [him] down”.
The 27-year-old claimed he was “the outcast” of his compatriots before describing himself as an inspiration to others who have been surrounded by “negative headlines and clouds”.
Continue reading...Nick Kyrgios has wished Rafa Nadal well in his recovery from the injury that forced the Spaniard out of the Wimbledon semi-final and gifted the Australian a place in his first grand slam final.
Kyrgios was handed a walkover into Sunday’s final against either Novak Djokovic or Cam Norrie when Nadal, who played through an abdominal tear sustained during his quarter-final win against Taylor Fritz, admitted defeat and pulled out on Thursday.
Reuters and Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
Continue reading...Fight in front of fans was reportedly broken up by police with the men taken into custody and later bailed
Three of Wimbledon’s security guards have been arrested after an alleged fight between them within the grounds of the grand slam tennis tournament.
The altercation on Friday took place between guards working for Knights Group Security, the company contracted to provide security services to Wimbledon.
Continue reading...Ajla Tomljanović has continued to fly the Australian standard handed over by Ash Barty at Wimbledon, surviving a nervy final set to reach the quarter-finals.
Watched from the stands by Margaret Court, the new national No 1 battled back from losing the first set to defeat French giant-killer Alizé Cornet 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Monday.
Continue reading...All England club emails tennis stars, who get £90 a day, and coaches, suggesting they rein in consumption to avoid shortages
Wimbledon stars have been asked to be “judicious” about maxing out their daily food allowance so supplies do not run out.
Competitors are given a £90 a day allowance to spend on food and drink in dedicated restaurants across SW19. Coaches are allocated about half that amount, with the funds available on accreditation tags that can be scanned at checkout.
Continue reading...Campaigners wearing T-shirts with name of Chinese tennis player say they were told not to approach anyone
Activists wearing “Where is Peng Shuai?” T-shirts claim they were confronted by Wimbledon security staff who warned them against approaching spectators and political messaging at SW19.
Nine-time champion Martina Navratilova expressed her anger at the move after the campaigners posted a video online saying they were stopped and questioned.
The group of four men from the Free Tibet campaign said they came to Wimbledon to “raise a bit of awareness” about the Chinese tennis player, a former doubles world No 1.
The 36-year-old disappeared from public view for weeks last year after she made public allegations on social media saying that a former top-ranked Communist party official pressured her into having sex.
But her post was deleted quickly, and Peng was not seen for a couple of weeks. She later appeared only in photo opportunities arranged by Chinese officials. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) suspended hosting events in China because of their concerns about her.
Will Hoyles, 39, one of the campaigners, said: “We came trying to raise a bit of awareness but Wimbledon have managed to make it worse for themselves by harassing us …
“They were asking loads of questions about what we were going to do, why we were here, you know, what we’d already done etc. And we told them we’d just been wandering around and we’d spoken to a few people and that’s when they seemed to get quite suspicious.”
Continue reading...Billie Jean King, Roger Federer, Björn Borg and Venus Williams among 26 tennis legends to mark occasion
Wimbledon spectators were treated to appearances by some of the tournament’s legends including Billie Jean King, Roger Federer and Venus Williams on Sunday as Centre Court celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The ceremony featured 26 previous champions as well as a singalong led by Cliff Richard, recreating when he memorably entertained the Centre Court crowd in similar fashion during a lengthy rain delay in 1996.
Continue reading...Ten British players step out in second round after day in which record six Britons won matches
A piece of history has been made at Wimbledon as 10 British players stepped out in the second round for the first time since 1984.
Harriet Dart, 25, defeated Spain’s Rebeka Masarova in straight sets as the crowd roared and her mother watched on, while British men’s No 1, Cameron Norrie, 26, was also triumphant on Wednesday, beating Spain’s Jaume Munar and reaching the third round.
Continue reading...The tournament is understood to have made a rare exception to its dress code, with some players wearing ribbons in solidarity
Wimbledon is abandoning its strict all-white rule for players who want to show solidarity with Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, it is understood.
Poland’s Iga Świątek, the women’s world No 1, wore a blue and yellow ribbon on her cap today in a sign of unity with Ukraine. The Ukrainian players Lesia Tsurenko and Anhelina Kalinina are also expected to wear ribbons when they come up against each other on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Thanasi Kokkinakis “can’t wait” after breaking his Wimbledon hoodoo to set up a second-round blockbuster with three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic.
Five long years since his last appearance at the All England Club, Kokkinakis continued his 2022 renaissance with a watershed 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, 7-5 victory over Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak on Monday.
Continue reading...Energy crisis has made Kent scheme aimed at unobtrusively building up solar output more timely
Tennis fans tucking into strawberries at Wimbledon this month may find their fruit has an unusual origin – a solar-powered greenhouse.
Transparent panels have been attached to the sides of glasshouses in Kent as part of a trial to build up solar power supplies without using more land.
Continue reading...Novak Djokovic has never been afraid to speak out his ambitions for the world to hear. That was true when he was a novice on the tour and to many his self-confidence was misplaced, and it has maintained deep into his 30s as he has chased down the singular goal of becoming the greatest player of his time, making no secret of what he thought he could achieve.
Over the past 13 and a half years since his marathon began with his first major title, so much of what Djokovic has meticulously planned for has and continues to be realised. On Sunday, he took one of the biggest steps of his career, recovering from a set down against a valiant Matteo Berrettini to win 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 and clinch his men’s record-equalling 20th grand slam title.
Continue reading...It’s been a tumultuous five years for Andy Murray: countless injuries, a new metal hip, four children and a bout of Covid. Can the former world No 1 really battle his way back to brilliance at Wimbledon?
Is he or isn’t he? One minute Andy Murray, one of Britain’s greatest living athletes, tells me he’ll be back on the court at Wimbledon this month, playing well in the tournament that made his name. And the next, he doesn’t sound so sure. “The test is being on court with the best players,” he says in a break in training, “and that’s something that, right this second, is difficult to give a definitive answer to.”
The joy of sport is its unpredictability, but Murray’s not talking about that. His body has been through such immense stress and strain – throughout his career, but especially over the past few years – that he can’t rely on it. He genuinely doesn’t know what it can do.
Continue reading...Simona Halep played a near-flawless final on Saturday to become the first Romanian woman to win Wimbledon, simultaneously wrecking Serena Williams’s bid for a record-equalling 24th major, a dream that grows more unlikely by the day.
The 37-year-old American – still one short of Margaret Court’s all-time tally – smiled graciously at the end but will have been crying inside, while Halep beamed like a lighthouse in celebration of a 6-2, 6-2 drubbing in only 56 minutes of perhaps the game’s greatest player.
Continue reading...In the past, queer female athletes all too often had to hide their sexuality. Today, they’re proudly coming out – and challenging bigotry in sport and society as a whole
Women in sport still face a lot of stigma and abuse. One reason for this is the stigma and abuse that women face in general, but added to that is the fact that women in sport are often pegged as lesbians. You’d like to think that women kicking a ball, swinging a bat or hitting a target wouldn’t be so political – yet here we are, still trapped in the patriarchy’s locker room, engulfed in Lynx Africa fumes.
Recently, however, queer female athletes have proudly come to the fore. This week, Belgian tennis players Alison van Uytvanck and Greet Minnen became the first IRL couple to team up at Wimbledon, and called for more support in the sport for same-sex couples – in particular, saying it would help male players to come out.
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