The following facts, figures are a small part of the Wimbledon trivia highlighted on the official website of The Championships.
The Crowd
• In 2014 the attendance was 491,084.
• On a daily basis there are 39,000 spectators
• There are 15,000 seats for the finals matches.
Courts
• 41 total
• 19 Championships grass courts (Centre + Numbers 1-19, less 13)
• 22 grass practice courts in Aorangi Park and at Southlands College.
• Championships playing height 8mm. Court grass composed of 100% rye grass.
Balls
• 54,250 balls are used
• Slazenger is the official ball.
Racket Stringing
• Championships stringing team string on average over 2,000 rackets
• 60% for men
• 40% for women.
• Over 40 miles of string.
Catering
Wimbledon is the largest activity for catered food in Europe:
• 350,000 cups of tea and coffee
• 150,000 bottles of water
• 207,000 meals
• 230,000 glasses of Pimm’s
• 190,000 sandwiches
• 150,000 bath buns, scones, pasties and doughnuts
• 130,000 lunches
• 100,000 pints of draught beer and lager
• 60,000 sausage baguettes
• 40,000 char-grilled meals
• 32,000 portions of fish and chips
• 30,000 liters of milk
• 142,000 portions of English strawberries
• 28,000 bottles of champagne
• 15,000 bananas (for players)
• 60,000 portions of ice cream
• 12,000 kg of poached salmon and smoked salmon
• 7,000 liters of dairy cream
• 6,000 stone baked pizzas.
Retail
The top selling items in the Wimbledon Shop were:
• 16,000 Men’s Championships Towel
• 9,000 Women’s Championships Towel
• 11,000 Mini Tennis Ball Key ring
• 10,000 Twin pack wristbands
• 10,000 Mini Umbrellas
• 8,000 Yellow Midi Autograph Balls.
Staff
Around 6,000 staff are on staff for the Championships:
• Ball boys & girls: 250
• Ball distributors: 7
• Building Services: 84
• Catering Staff: 1,800
• Cleaners (night): 191
• Cleaners (day): 114
• Court attendants: 151
• Data Collectors: 36
• Dressing room attendants: 22
• Groundsmen: 20
• Left luggage office: 30
• Lift operators: 30
• Physiotherapists: 14
• Practice courts: 8
• Media staff: 38
• Referee’s Office: 15
• Scoreboard operators & data collectors: 46
• Security guards: 700
• Stewards (Honorary): 185
• Stewards (Service & London Fire Brigade): 595
• Transport service drivers: 320
• 350 officials on duty comprising mostly British plus 60 from overseas.
Serving – Aces/Fastest Serve
• Men: 212 Aces – Goran Ivanisevic (CRO) 2001
• Ladies: 57 Aces – Alexandra Stevenson (USA) 1999, Serena Williams (USA) 2008
• Men: 148 mph – Taylor Dent – 2010
• Women: 129 mph – Venus Williams – 2008.
Hawk-Eye – Challenges (singles only) 2014
• Men made 428 Challenges and 120 were correct, a 28.0% success rate.
• Ladies made 191 Challenges of which 49 were correct, a 25.7% success rate.
Broadcast totals for 2014
• Gentlemen’s Singles final drew a peak audience of 10 million viewers. (BBC)
• The Ladies’ Singles Final drew a peak audience of 3.1m viewers (BBC).
• ESPN’s broadcast of the Gentlemen’s Singles final drew an average of 1,894,000 homes and 2,456,000 viewers.
• Australia: Channel Seven indicated the Kyrgios quarterfinal match attracted a viewing peak in Metropolitan and rural districts at just over 3.4m – the Gentlemen’s Singles final peaked at 2.5m and the total reach for The Championships was close to 7m.
Website
• Unique users – 17.1 million users
• Visits – 63 million
• Page views – 473 million
• Geography split in order of most trafficked: UK, US, Australia, Canada.
• Mobile app downloads (iPhone, Android and iPad) – 1.7million
• Live @ Wimbledon – 1.3 million streams
• Live @ Wimbledon Radio – 6.3 million streams
• Wimbledon-hosted Russian service – 3 million streams.
As can be seen by this list of Wimbledon trivia, The Championships are much more than a great tennis tournament.