The Biggest Tournaments in Tennis

The Wimbledon tournament lasts 14 days and used to always begin in June. However, recent changes in the tennis calendar have moved the date up, so it now commences in July. A dress code for the royals in attendance and players is only one of the many traditions that the event upholds. It is also famous for the fact that strawberries and cream are the food of choice. For instance, in the year 2007, fans ate 34,000kgs of strawberries and 10,000 litres of cream during the event.

Looking around the Wimbledon courts, you will not see any sponsored advertising. But that doesn’t mean that companies are not interested in it. In fact, it is one of the most popular sports events for punters to place a bet on. At Mr Green, you can find both fixed and live betting for matches at Wimbledon.

The History of Wimbledon

As one of the oldest sporting events, Wimbledon first took place in 1877. The event’s venue has not changed since and continues to be the London All England Club, Wimbledon.

The Wimbledon tournament is the only of the four Grand Slams that is being played on the grass, as used to be the tradition. Even the rules that were originally set up for the Lawn Tennis Championship are still very similar to the ones that are used today.

The Englishman Spencer Gore, who was also a first-class cricketer, was the first person to win the championship when only men were the only participants. The changes in the world of sport introduced the women singles and the gentlemen’s doubles in 1884. The first ladies doubles and mixed doubles took place in 1913.

How Wimbledon is structured

The draw is a random selection that is executed by a computer to determine the players’ position. All the 32 seeded names are taken from the draw before this process, and the organisers add them back later.

There is a very good reason why the process is like this: each player is placed in one of the two brackets to ensure that highly seeded players do not face each other early on in the tournament. In other words, what the software does is to make sure that none of the top eight seeds meets until the end of the start of the quarter-finals.

Player spotlight: Roger Federer

Roger Federer won his latest and 100th singles career in Dubai 2019 and the Swiss has won the Wimbledon title eight times. He holds another record for the most Grand Slam titles totalling 20. Federer turned to a professional in 1998; his ranking since 2002 was in the top 10 for 14 years. He propelled back into the top 10 by winning the Australian Open back in 2017.

Most analysts and fellow players regard him as the greatest ever player to embrace the tennis court. In his generation, he is sometimes even referred to him as one of the greatest athletes of the time. Alongside the Grand Slam wins, Roger Federer also won the 2008 Olympic gold medal.

How the US Open is structured

The event covers five primary competitions, i.e., women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles. Other events include the juniors, seniors, and wheelchair players. USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in Flushing Meadows has been hosting the US Open since 1978.

The US Open is the only one of the four Grand Slams that uses tiebreakers in every singles match. This is also the only Grand Slam to feature 16 qualifiers, instead of 12, in the women singles event.

Player spotlight: Jimmy Connors

He was arguably the greatest ever player to grace the US Open. He took part in the event for five consecutive years in a row, running from 1974 to 1978, and won three of the titles. Each of these titles was won on a different surface: grass, hard court, and clay. Jimmy Connors final US Open win was in 1983, ending the year as the world’s No.3. In that year, two other greats, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe were swapping the top two ranking positions many times.

Jimmy Connors assumed the No.1 ATP for a record 160 weeks straight at the time, starting in 1974 and ending in 1977. In total, he held the top spot for 268 weeks.

How the Australian Open is structured

The beginning of every tournament is marked by the singles qualification event which normally lasts a few days. The first round starts soon after the qualification rounds end. This is usually followed by the knockout stage of the Australian Open which eventually leads to the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals mark the prime stage of the game where all the action goes down.

The draws are planned such that the women’s final is played on Saturdays and the men’s final takes place the following day. The men’s final game raises the stakes, and that is where you could use some of Mr Green’s betting strategies before you place your next bet.

Player spotlight: Novak Djokovic

Djokovic holds the record for wins at the Australian Open, with eight wins in 16 years. He also has 17 Grand Slam titles to his name, 34 ATP Tour Masters 1000 times, 13 ATP tour 500 titles, and he has won 5 ATP finals.

But wait, there’s more: Novak Djokovic stayed at the helm of ATP ranking for more than 240 weeks. He is on record as the first-ever player to win all Grand Slams on three different playing surfaces. Plus he is the only male tennis player who has won each of the nine Master 1000 events. You can see why Serbia is proud of its first No. 1 ranked tennis player.

Away from the court, Djokovic has won the 2011 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the year award and various other awards.

How the French Open is structured

When it comes to the structure of the tournament, there are not many differences between the other Grand Slams and the French Open. The main difference is, as previously mentioned, the playing surface. Clay courts make the tournament physically draining and the toughest in the world. The courts are slow, and players have to rely on topspin shots.

Many players who were successful at the other Grand slams have tried to defend their success here and failed. Some of them include John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Maria Bueno, Bill Tilden, Boris Becker, and Jimmy Connors.

Player spotlight: Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal has a record of being a winner at Roland Garros 12 times. He has won 19 Grand Slam events in total and he is on Roger Federer’s heels for the most Grand Slam victories. He had a No. 1 ATP ranking for 196 weeks and has more than 80 career titles to his name. On the clay court, Rafael won more than 50 titles. Rafael Nadal holds the record for the longest winning streak on the same surface since the beginning of the Open Era.

Nadal has been a member of the winning Davis Cup team from Spain on four different occasions. Together with Rod Laver, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, Nadal is one of only five players ever to complete a Career Grand Slam.

Davis Cup history

The event started in 1900 when it hosted a contest between the United States and Great Britain. The competition idea is thought to have come from the US National Lawn Tennis Association president James Dwight in 1881.

Global competitions had been taking place before the first Davis Cup event. The first of such events was an annual competition between England and Ireland, but it didn’t last very long.

Since the early days of the Davis Cup, the number of countries participating has grown rapidly. In 2016 no less than 135 nations registered. Two countries have dominated the tournaments success history with the United States holding 32 titles and Australia with 28 titles.

Fed Cup history

The Fed Cup was the dream of Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman back in 1919. She wanted a tennis competition that features only women as participants. At that time, the idea was not embraced. However, she later presented the Wightman Cup prize at an annual event that featured Great Britain and the United States.

Later in 1962, another lady, Mary Hardwick Hare came up with a dossier supporting an idea similar to Wightman’s dream. She garnered a lot of support and sympathy, and there was no way ITF would have rejected her idea. The Fed Cup was introduced 40 years after Wightman’s dream.

How the Fed Cup is structured

The most notable change to the structure of the Fed Cup took place in 1992 when the regional qualifying competitions were introduced. Three years later, the same year in which the name Federation Cup was changed to Fed Cup, matches were starting to be played in the home countries of the teams. The home-and-away format has been in use since 1995 with minimal changes.

In the year 2005, another format involving two world groups with eight countries each was introduced. All teams play both home and away fixtures over the duration of three weekends per year. At the same time, three regional groups also compete with results that will determine promotions and relegations.