The First Wimbledon: How the 1877 Tennis Tournament Changed Sports Forever

Step back to July 9, 1877, and witness the birth of a legend—the inaugural Wimbledon tennis championship. Discover how 22 men gathered on a grass court in southwest London, competing for a silver cup and a place in history. Explore the origins of modern tennis, the key figures like Spencer Gore and William Marshall, and the Victorian traditions that shaped the world’s oldest—and most prestigious—tennis tournament. From rain delays to revolutionary playing styles, this episode unpacks the drama, innovation, and legacy of the very first Wimbledon.
Key topics:

• Origins of Wimbledon and lawn tennis
• Major Walter Clopton Wingfield’s influence
• The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club
• Match details, rules, and equipment of 1877
• Spencer Gore’s historic victory
• How Wimbledon evolved into a global sporting icon

Speaker 1: So imagine this nice summer afternoon in eighteen seventy seven.

You're in England viewing a freshly mode lawn where twenty

two men in Chris flannel gather for not fame and fortune,

but to play a game for a silver cup. But

little did they know that they were starting a sports revolution.

They were playing in the very first Wimbledon tournament that

would become the most iconic tennis championship in the world.

Through rivalries, rain, delays, volleys, the game was changed right

there on the Wimbledon lawn almost one hundred and fifty

years ago. And today we're going to dive into what

happened to start this iconic tournament in Wimbledon today on

Daily Sports History. Let's go. Welcome to Daily Sports History.

I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because I once called a

foot vault on my grandmother, So we gotta go way

back for this one. In the early nineteenth century, tennis

was an elite indoor game played in palaces, was only

really accessible to the wealthy. Then an invention known as

the lawnmower by Edwin Beard Budding in eighteen thirty revolutionized

British gardening, making well kept lawns possible not only for

the elite, but the middle class as well, and this

led to a boom in outdoor lawn sports such as croquet,

lawn bowling and tennis, and it became a popular social

event in the eighteen sixties to watch lawn sports. But

croquet was slow and young players wanted something more dynamic.

That's when Major Walter Wingfield, a retired British Army officer,

recognized the desire for a new sport, and in eighteen

seventy three he introduced a game called Sheerstrike, which is

Greek four skill with a ball. It had a net

to rackets and rubber balls, all on an hour glass

shaped court, and it became a hit in Britain immediately

and it sold over one thousand kits in its first year.

I mean that sound like you a lot. There was

no internets and no cars or delivery services, so you

had to go door to door or set up shop somewhere.

It was a lot more challenging and he released his

first rule book for lawn tennis in eighteen seventy three

and patent the game in eighteen seventy four, and they

would change the rules and make it more resemble what

we know today, and there were other games that actually

had similarities and they were getting experimented with, but launtiness

actually began to take flight, and in eighteen seventy five

Merrily Bone Cricket Club helped standardize the rules and included

a now familiar rectangle court as the last court was

a little hard to make and had our scoring system

that we know today. And the All England Croquet Club

saw an opportunity to dis grounds and attract new members

and it would start its first ever Wimbledon tournament in

eighteen seventy seven and they did so really to raise money.

They needed money for a new lawn roller and this

was their fundraiser. They announced on the Field magazine inviting

amateurs to compete and they would all have to pay

an entry fee in with the game. From the entry

fee and fans would be what's known and it was

actually a croquet lawn in Wimbledon, a small village southwest

of London that would become the epicenter for world tennis.

And it is interesting that a croquet club that would

eventually change its name to a croquet and Lawn tennis

club would choose tennis over croquet as it was surging

in popularity. The original club site had four acres in

the meadowlands in Wimbledon and leased it for fifty pounds

a year starting in eighteen sixty nine, and the grounds

featured croquete lons, but in eighteen eighty seven they converted

one to tennis, and the following year they added even more,

becoming more dedicated to tennis than croquet. Now, the rules

for this tournament they adapted from the Mary Bone Cricket Clubs,

but made some key adjustment. The court size was seventy

eight by twenty seven feet, which is roughly what we

had today for the singles, the net height three feet

in the center and five feet at the post, and

they only allowed under armed serfs, and the scoring would

be fifteen thirty forty game and the balls would be

hand sewn flannel covered rubber, and they would end up

having twenty two men enter and only twenty one would play.

And at this time no women's event existed, and it

was set to start on July ninth, and they would

start the day with ten matches and if the tournament

would proceed over several days, with the finals actually being

delayed but would end up being played on July nineteen,

eighteen seventy seven, in front of two hundred spectators. Doesn't

sound like a lot, but remember no stadium. People standing

around two hundred ends up actually looking at a lot

in that situation, and it actually felt more like a

garden party feel rather than the stadiums we feel today.

And they made a profit of ten pounds during this event.

May not sound like much, but remember that was twenty

percent of their lease fee for the year and they

only put this on to get a new lawn roller

and the winner would receive a silver Challenge Cup and

twelve guineas in prize money. So what was this final like? Well,

had Spencer Gore, a twenty seven year old racket specialist,

basing against William Marshall, a twenty eight year old tennis

player and architect. Nobody was pro at this time, so

they were all amateurs and it was delayed due to

rain and also the annual Eton in Horror cricket match

also delayed it too because everyone had to go see

that rather than this new matchup. So with that in

all the rain, it got pushed back three days and

when grass is wet, it gets slippery. Even if it

didn't rain that day, the rain previous day can still

be wet, and so it was a wet, slippery surface.

I couldn't even imagine trying to play on it. And

Marshall would start off the serve and again, it's still

weird to think about just underhand serves this entire time.

But Gore really took an aggressive approach. He played aggressively

at the net, voling, taking a more attactic considered kind

of controversial at the time, kind of unsportsmanlike. Now it's

very common to be aggressive playing at the net trying

to win points, but then it was not a common thing,

and it led Gore to win the first sets six

to one in just fifteen minutes. The third set Gore

would win two three to two in thirteen minutes, and

he would finish the final set the third set six

to four in twenty minutes. So the entire game lasted

just forty eight minutes. That's crazy. That's the entire time

they played, including all breaks and everything they did in

between serves. That is crazy to think about today where

finals matches can be over two hours. This wasn't the

only match. They actually had a second and third place

match held where Marshall defeated Charles Heathcote in straight sets

to win a silver prize for a second place and

hearth Coat would end up in third. Now, the club

profited ten pounds for this for a much needed lawn roller.

So if this was just done for a run, lawer,

how do we have it every year? Well, it was

the world's first official lawn tennis tournament. This is the

first of its kind. It was becoming popular and it

needed a reason to happen. Now it's recognized as probably

the most premier tennis match ever and it's happening every

year because guess what, when you make a profit, you

want to do it again and again. Even though it

was just ten pounds of profit, you figure out way

to do it better and better and make it better

and get more fans and more spectators, more people involved,

and tennis was growing rapidly. It overtook croquet as the

main attraction for the club and by eighteen eighty two

they just dropped croquet completely from the club name and

were just the Tennis Club and the annual championship started

to get more and more publicity and fans, and by

nineteen fourteen, the original grounds could not even accommodate the

demand and they had to move to a larger site

which they opened in nineteen twenty two, where they still

hold Wimbledon to this day and Spencer Gore's victory really

changed the style. Volley play became the main style at

the time, showing that there was other ways to play,

and today the All England Lawn Tennis Club features over

eighteen different championships throughout the year, including Wimbledon, the Grand

Slam that takes place every year during the summer that

we all like to see, building on almost over one

hundred and fifty years a tradition. The question is this

pickleball going to go through the same thing as tennis

to overtake it. I want to thank you for listening

today's Daily Sports History. If you'd like this, please make

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you don't miss an episode. And it makes me happy

to see you guys come back and listen as I

put a lot of blood, sweat and tear into this

and it motivates me to come back for the next

one and I'll see you there