Wimbledon has always been an arena of thrills and spills; rows and tantrums; sex and scandals; and that’s before the games even begin. It is an intoxicating combination: fanatic royals, Pimms-fuelled commoners and hepped-up athletes being offered more prize money than they can shake a racket at. This year the gentleman and lady singles champions will take home a cool £3 million, and even being knocked out in the first round will see you sitting £66,000 prettier. So hold onto your hats, I have a feeling this tournament is set to be particularly stormy.
“It’s such a quintessential part of the English summer. It hasn’t changed either, I think that’s what’s so wonderful,” says the Princess of Wales of the most famous tennis competition in the world. This might be nice sentiment, but it just so happens not to be true. In fact things are all change at Wimbledon. Starting with the ball boys and girls (known as BBGs) and their training. This has always been rigorous. Ex-captain ball boy Alex Crockford remembers it as gruelling and stressful: “It was a strictly disciplined environment. You have to follow lots of rules and traditions because it’s Wimbledon. Not just on the court, but how to walk to and from it.”
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The training, which started in October, winnows down the group of boys and girls Hunger Games style. “Kids were continually being released. It involved a mixture of physical and mental skills. Rolling, throwing, catching. Position and posture. Then there are seated exams. You need to know the game inside out,” says Alex, who is now a fitness instructor. Of course the biggest challenge is when the games begin. Though BBGs are now only on court for one hour at a time, in the heat they tend to drop like flies. But the greatest terror is of demotion, one shoddily rolled ball can see you bumped from centre court into obscurity. “The top people in charge of the ball kids were intimidating to me, but I think it was just the authority and the level of discipline. I was really nervous about the whole thing because I knew it was such a high standard and lots of pressure,” says Alex.
Since his day things have become even more draconian. A currently serving ball girl says: “I think we’ve always been told that our job is to be seen as little as we can, to blend into the background when we can. And not to talk to any of the players unless they talk to us first. But last week we were told that we are not allowed to keep any of the towels we find. We are meant to hand them in.” This is a blow; sweaty towels have traditionally been the great ball boy boon. Otherwise the pickings are pretty slim; BBGs receive £200 for travel and expenses plus their trainers, uniforms and a pack of Wimbledon balls. But there are other perks. Although BBGs are unlikely to make fast friends with the players — “rarely were they overly friendly since we were the last thing on their mind" and "you did get the occasional grumpy one” — there are always the trusty royals. Jem Stow, who ball girled last year and the one before that, admits that though the process was “quite stressful” it was rewarding too: “I met Kate Middleton when I was a part of the guard of honour in the men’s single final which was very cool.”
It will be interesting to see how the royals play it this year. The Princess of Wales will be there; as a Middleton she was already a paid-up Wimbledon nut and now she has been given trophy awarding privileges in her role as president of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, there will be no stopping her. Though the Duke of Kent, who she replaced in 2023, was said to be mournful at his usurping, he took it with predictably good and sporting grace. One royal unlikely to be there is the Duchess of Sussex. Although the tournament should hold some fond memories, it was in the Ralph Lauren VIP enclosure in 2016 that the fateful plan to set her up with Prince Harry was hatched between her and the King’s goddaughter, Violet Von Westenholz. More recent years have been less of a success. When the Duchess attended in 2019 (six months before Megxit) she was not allowed into the Royal Box because she was wearing jeans. She also put the nose of other Wimbledoners out of joint when she got her security guards to stop them taking pictures. Former world champion Sally Jones said at the time: “There were around two hundred photographers snapping away at her but security were sent to warn an old biddy like me. It makes them look silly. It's childish and takes us for fools.”
Sartorial wars have long been a bitter bone of contention. Most notably the underwear battles, which have included Gertrude Moran’s lace knickers in 1949, Tatiana Golovin’s red pants in 2007 and Venus Williams’ pink bra of 2017. There have also been bandana scrapes and jewellery tiffs. Someone who sadly won’t be adding to the heat this year is Boris Becker (known to wear the biggest gold watches he could handle back in his glory days) who has been snubbed by the BBC as a presenter. Though the three-time champion was deported after serving eight months of his 30-month sentence for hiding assets, he had made it clear that if Wimbledon wanted him he could petition the Home Office to be allowed back into the UK and would meet us court-side. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received.
Even Becker-less there should be some other good tantrums brewing though. Andrey Rublev is expected. The Number 5 seed distinguished himself last year when he smashed his racket onto his knee six times before yelling furiously and biffing himself once again. In fact it tends to be the poor rackets that take the brunt. In 2023 Novak Djokovic was fined £6,117 for racket abuse. And that same year, 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva was penalised for unsporting behaviour after hurling her racket twice and refusing to shake hands with the umpire.
Things off court can be just as dramatic. Though Emma Raducanu’s stalker has been banned from buying tickets, such is the level of fanaticism in the stands that rows will be legion. In 2017 Judy Murray called a man a “jerk” after he wrestled the sweaty towel thrown by Jack Sock off a small boy. Meanwhile, one ball girl I talked to remembers a rowdy group of girls being threatened with eviction for lewd behaviour when Alcaraz was serving. “We didn’t really see what the fuss was about, everyone was cheering him but apparently there was something rude about the way they were doing it,” she remembers. The bookies are already taking in record bets, but there is one thing we don’t have to gamble on: Wimbledon is not all strawberries and cream.
