Chapter 1498 Fine Traditions
The All England Club, a small private club located in the western suburbs of London, is responsible for hosting the annual Wimbledon Tennis Championships and has stubbornly and tenaciously adhered to the tradition of modern tennis for more than a hundred years.
Sometimes, people accuse the All England Club of being too conservative and backward, not being able to adapt, not keeping up with the times, and even hurting the promotion of tennis.
In fact, not just once, but many, many times.
But the All England Club still sticks to its own principles. They are willing to change, just a little slower. They are willing to progress, just a little later. No matter what, they always use their own attitude to show modern young people the tradition of tennis, which is what tennis looked like when it was born a hundred years ago.
This deserves applause.
Grass is just one of the most basic traditions of the All England Club.
First, the jerseys.
Green and purple are the traditional colors of Wimbledon. The uniforms of the referees and staff are all uniform, continuing the tradition of a hundred years ago.
At the same time, participating players must wear white jerseys. This is the only tennis tournament throughout the year that stipulates the color of players' clothing.
"White clothes are whiter than snow, and the grass is green" has become the most beautiful scenery of Wimbledon every year, and even a landmark picture.
Players must wear white from headband to shoe soles. Not only that, the All England Club also stipulates that the sports bras that players may expose during the game must also be white. All details are strictly required to the centimeter range, and all are clearly stipulated.
In 2013, Federer was once discovered by the referee that the soles of his specially customized Nike shoes were orange-red. The referee required him to change his shoes during the game, otherwise the game could not continue. After the game, the Swiss king bluntly expressed his strong protest: "I like Wimbledon, but these strict rules are indeed a bit harsh, and some of the requirements can even be said to be ridiculous."
In addition, Bouchard was found to be wearing black underwear during the game, which led to the suspension of the game; Kyrgios was asked to change his headband because the Wimbledon logo on his headband was more than one centimeter, otherwise he would be disqualified from the game; a few years ago, Kournikova appeared on the court wearing black tight shorts and a white jersey, but was turned away and could not play in the game without changing her shorts.
Ridiculous? But it really happened, and more than once.
With the penetration of commercialization and the strong individuality of players, this regulation has been slightly adjusted. The All England Club accepts sleeveless shirts for male players and hot pants for female players. It also allows the addition of colorful elements when the main body is white, but the premise is that the width is within one centimeter.
The only time the century-old All England Club made an exception was at the 2016 London Olympics, when players were allowed to wear national team colors instead of white.
Of course, some people are curious, why? Is it just because white and green look better together?
Looking back at history, we can find that this move was actually made to respect the British royal family.
In the early years, the Queen loved Wimbledon very much and would come to watch the game every year. Later, it evolved into a tradition. The royal box was retained in the Central Court. Every year, members of the royal family might come to watch the game, and there were countless occasions when the Queen herself came to the scene.
To show respect, the All England Club has established a series of rules:
The white jersey is one of them, but unexpectedly, it has continued to this day. Regardless of whether the Queen is present or not, the white jersey has become the standard on the field. This rule was relaxed in the 1990s and the requirements were not so strict, but it became strict again after entering the 21st century.
In addition, when players landed on the central stadium to play, they had to salute the royal box before the game, regardless of whether there was anyone in the box. However, this rule was later considered too pedantic and inflexible, so the All England Club made adjustments. If there was no one in the box, there was no need to salute.
In addition, a series of details have been formulated in terms of address. Unlike the "men/women" addresses in the other three Grand Slams, here they must be addressed as "gentlemen/ladies"; at the same time, the referee must use honorifics when announcing scores or talking, and add prefixes in front of the last name, such as "Miss/Mrs.", "Mr.", which are not found in the other three Grand Slams.
Secondly, seed ranking.
For the other three Grand Slams, seeding is determined based on the world rankings on the registration deadline. The world number one is the number one seed, which is simple and clear. However, this is not the case for Wimbledon.
Because the All England Club is a private club, they believe that they are different from official organizations such as ATP and WTA, so they do not need to determine the seed ranking entirely according to the world ranking.
Since 2001, the All England Club has set up a special committee to refer to the players' grass performance in the past few years and then list the seeding seats according to their world ranking.
The committee announced this special calculation formula, which uses the world ranking points on the Wimbledon registration deadline as the basis, plus the points from all grass-court tournaments in the past 12 months and 75% of the best grass-court tournament points in the 12 months before that.
In response, the All England Club stated that the grass court season is getting shorter and more precious, and they hope to encourage players to actively participate in this way, improve their seed rankings at Wimbledon in the short term through performance in different tournaments, and win better draws; for grass court tournament organizers, it will also be able to attract more top players to participate and help the tournaments operate healthily.
It's a win-win situation.
The results are obvious to all. Events including Queen's Club, Halle and Stuttgart have received more attention from players. The most obvious one is 's-Hertogenbosch. This small Dutch city has almost no special public relations publicity, but because of Wimbledon's seed ranking method, every year the top 30 players in the world go to participate to ensure that the event can continue.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
It is for this reason that the announcement of the seedings at Wimbledon each year is also a major attraction.
Even professional tennis journalists are often too lazy to calculate the points through formulas and list the rankings. They all wait for the All England Club committee to announce the seed rankings, which will then cause a chorus of exclamations. Every year's seeding seats will more or less cause controversy, with some agreeing, some opposing, and some just watching the show.
But it is undeniable that those grass court masters have indeed benefited from this special rule.
In 2010, before the registration deadline for Wimbledon, Nadal surpassed Federer to become the world's number one, but when he arrived at the All England Club, Federer was still the top seed.
In 2011, Serena Williams, whose world ranking dropped to 26th place due to injury, competed in Wimbledon as the seventh seed.
For legends like Federer and Serena Williams, such a seed ranking rule is a respect, but for other players who are working hard to improve their world rankings, it may not be so fair. It is precisely because of this that the seed ranking of Wimbledon every year will cause controversy.
However, the All England Club continues to do its own thing.
(End of this chapter)