For the first time in seven decades, the Royal Box of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) will not be watching in case its patron, Queen Elizabeth II, is scheduled to visit Wimbledon. For the moment, it has not been revealed if King Carlos III has a visit to the entity on his agenda during the current edition of the tournament.
On May 3, days before the Coronation of His Majesty King Carlos III, the AELTC organized a ceremony planting a commemorative oak tree in the facility, as well as promoting various community initiatives with 400 guests. Ian Hewitt, Chairman of the All England Club, said: “We are very proud of our long connection to the Royal Family and, on behalf of all of us here at Wimbledon, I would like to extend our best wishes to Her Majesty ahead of the Coronation.”
Queen Elizabeth II did not have a great fondness for tennis. In fact, in the seven decades of her reign, she has only visited the AELTC four times, although each of them was very special. The first was in 1957, when she presented the Venus Rosewater Dish to Althea Gibson, the first black woman to win a Grand Slam.
“The Queen had a wonderful voice, and she looked exactly as a Queen should look, except more beautiful than I expected. She told me ‘it must have been awfully hot out there’ and I told her that she hoped it hadn’t been so hot in the Royal Box. Thereupon she handed me the gold plate engraved with the names of all the champions and I curtsied to her,” Gibson wrote in his biography. At the Champions Dinner after the tournament, Althea Gibson performed Billlie Holiday’s song ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’.
In 1962, Elizabeth II returned to Wimbledon on Friday, when Australian Rod Laver defeated compatriot Martin Mulligan in the final. The Queen presented the trophy to the Australian who would end that season conquering the 4 big four and completing the Grand Slam.
Fifteen years later, in 1977, on the occasion of the centenary of the first edition of the tournament, Elizabeth II visited the entity to witness the women’s final between the British Virginia Wade and the Dutch Betty Stove. “When days before they told me that Isabel II would attend the final, I told myself that this must be my strength and inspiration to play my best tennis and win the tournament. During the ceremony there was so much noise on the track that I could barely read a ‘Well done’ on her lips when she handed me the trophy,” Wade explained years after her success.
For that 1977 Wimbledon, the club was decked out with a new decoration and the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and the Kenneth Richie Wimbledon Library were inaugurated. On the first day, 41 champions from past editions paraded and were honored on the center court in the presence of the Dukes of Kent and to the music of the Welsh Guards Band.
Thirty-three years later, in 2010, Elizabeth II’s last and most emotional visit to the club took place. Hundreds of spectators awaited the arrival of the Queen along St. Marys Walk, a route that connects tracks 8 to 11 with the club’s main building. After being received with a bouquet of petunias and roses, the Queen crossed the Aorangi Terrace listening to warm applause and was received in the garden of the players area by great champions such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Martina Navratilova, Tim Henman, Virginia Wade or Billie Jean King.
He then went to the Royal Box to see Andy Murray in action.” It was really special to play against her at Wimbledon. I remember playing Jarkko Nieminen and the ending was pretty weird. Usually, when you finish the match, you and your opponent go separately, but we were led to a room together and we were there chatting about what had happened in the match, something that never really happens,” Murray recalls.
While waiting to find out what the legacy of Carlos III will be at Wimbledon, the truth is that his presence in the entity as Prince of Wales has been very little. His first visit to the club was in 1970, when he witnessed the match between Dennis Ralston and John Newcombe. It took him 42 years to return to the AELTC. He did it in 2012, accompanied by the now Reina Camila, to witness a match between Roger Federer and Fabio Fognini.
In 1926, on the occasion of the Jubilee Championships commemorating 50 years since the start of the tournament, King George V and Queen Mary visited the tournament and received a commemorative silver medal. The Queen had to wait for 45 minutes for the great Suzanne Lenglen to arrive on the track. The next day, Lenglen was booed in her doubles match, so the Frenchwoman decided to leave the tournament and never play at Wimbledon again.
That same year, the then Duke of York, and later King George VI, became the only member of the royal family to compete in the tournament, when he played the doubles test in the company of Louis Greig, losing easily in the first. round. Princesses Margaret and Marina of Kent, Princess of Wales Lady Diana Spencer, and Princes Williams and Harry have also attended Wimbledon.
Last week, Roger Federer and the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, coincided in an act at Wimbledon. In her role as patron of the All England Tennis Club, the Princess of Wales has recognized in a video the work of the ball boys, accompanied by the Swiss, who is her favorite tennis player. There, both have reflected on the importance of these very professional children and who make the development of the tournament so easy. In addition, Federer has remembered his beginnings as a ball boy when he was nine years old. “This is correct practice, I’m really impressed with how much effort and training it takes to be a ball boy during championships. I used to be a ball boy in Basel when I was 9 or 10 and as I always said, ‘Once a ball boy, always a ball boy.’ ball boy'”, said the Swiss.
