Grass roots: a slice of history at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum

This article is part of a guide to tennis from FT Globetrotter

When Roger Federer won his last Wimbledon title in 2017, he surpassed the seven victories that the sport’s first giant, William Renshaw, completed 128 years earlier but the Swiss genius’s impact on the game will never match that of Renshaw, who gave it three big innovations.

The Englishman invented two of the most basic strokes during his pioneering wins at Wimbledon: the overarm serve and the smash. His third gift to the game was a medical one. A fascinating record in a wall display at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum is a medical report explaining that after winning his first six titles in a row, Renshaw could not play in 1887 because of what his doctor labelled “a tennis elbow”.  

Back when amateurism was so prized that it was considered unsporting to actually practise before a match, Renshaw did as much as anybody to turn lawn tennis from a fashionable pastime for the middle classes into a real sport, so it is fitting that his story is best told here, in the world’s best tennis museum and on the grounds of the All England Club where he excelled.

The museum 

None of the other three Grand Slam tournaments has the history of Wimbledon, and none has a museum like this. The closest one can come is the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, but a celebration of famous players is not as enlightening as a genuine and comprehensive museum.

Located underground, just inside the front gates of the Wimbledon complex, the museum offers an interesting hour or so’s distraction for fans who are mainly focused on the heroes and heroines of the modern game, and a longer diversion for those who are also intrigued by the distant time before the launch of the “Open Era” in 1968, when professionals were officially allowed to play at Wimbledon and other major events.  

The 60,000 items in the museum’s collection trace the sport’s evolution from its earliest days to its latest champions, with the decisive breakthrough coming in 1877 when the decision by the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon to hold an annual lawn-tennis tournament helped to turn it into the most widely played individual ball game in the world.

The museum is open all year but it is a good idea to book online. Entry is free during the tournament to Wimbledon ticket-holders.  

The trophies 

The crown jewels here are the winners’ trophies, which curator Emma Traherne says are virtually impossible to value. “When you think about how many champions have handled them over the years, they just can’t be replaced — so how could you put a price on them?”

Winners take home a three-quarter sized replica, but the originals are displayed here in glass cases so that visitors can take selfies next to them and study the names engraved on them — so many that a plinth had to be added to the men’s trophy in 2009 to make room for future champions.  

Kit and clothing

The museum has interactive games that allow visitors to test their reflexes, and displays that allow you to feel the texture of different racket materials ranging from walnut to carbon fibre, and the various textiles used in outfits since the 1880s. You can lift weights that show how heavy the trophies are, and others that show the burden of the clothes women first wore. The white-clothes rule was introduced in the 1880s when it was found to lessen the appearance of damp patches on players’ outfits, a handy trait at a time when middle-class women were not supposed to sweat.

Exhibits range from the relocated fittings of the original gentlemen’s changing room, a 1930s racket-making workshop, a modern dressing room bench and lockers that were used by the players until 2019, plus dozens of items such as Rafael Nadal’s shoes, Serena Williams’ clothes and Martina Navratilova’s racket.

Old tech and new tech

The museum’s audio tour introduced by Andy Murray includes a spiel by John McEnroe about his career and greatest rivalries, and there’s a display of racket designs that includes oddities such as “The Handler”, a graphite creation by Inova which bizarrely features two handles.

A large gallery of modern action photographs is just down a corridor from a first edition of Treatise on Ball Play by Antonio Scaino, the first book ever written about early versions of the game, which was published in Venice in 1555. There are videos ranging from a flickering clip of one of the first ever pieces of footage showing lawn tennis being played, filmed in 1900, through to a wall-sized interactive screen that allows you to choose key moments of every singles final since 1970.

The origins of tennis

Images of French monks playing a 12th-century handball game are displayed near to a handheld protective glove, which would evolve into a racket with the addition of a handle to extend the player’s reach. One original document records a payment to a man who might have been the world’s first tennis professional. Dated November 3, 1623, it notes that a John Webb was paid for a year’s work as “instructor to the Prince”, the future King Charles I.

All this history brings some insights. Henry VIII loved Royal Tennis but had his servants do the hard work of hitting his first shot, hence it is called a “service”. The scoreline “love” is believed to come from the French word l’oeuf for egg, which resembles a zero. The other scores were apparently lifted by Royal Tennis players from the points on a clock face: 15, 30 and 40, a corruption of the 45-minute mark. Deuce seems to hail from “deux” as two more points are needed to win the game, and even the word tennis may come from “tenez”, meaning “hold” or “look out”.

Some exhibits have been bought at auction while others were donated, often after members of the public stumbled upon them during clear-outs. The earliest-known Wimbledon tournament poster, for the 1893 event, was found folded up behind a framed mirror.

The original tennis box set

Traherne tells me one of her favourite exhibits was found gathering dust in one of the complex’s storerooms when officials were looking for items that might help them to open the museum in 1977.

That exhibit is a red-painted wooden box that played a pivotal role in shaping the game as we now know it from the confusing jumble of ball games that had evolved by the middle of the 19th century.

In 1874 a retired military officer, Major Walter Wingfield, began marketing a game he had designed, which we would recognise today as the modern sport. An early marketing genius, he coined the term “lawn tennis”, introduced hollow rubber balls and sold boxes containing all the necessary equipment, including nets, a brush to mark the lines, racquets and his own rule book. Four other examples of the box set are known to exist but Wimbledon’s is the most complete.

Wingate was just trying to make a buck, but in the process he standardised the game because people in many places were suddenly playing with the same equipment and rules. It certainly had more of an impact than his other money-making ideas, such as games that could be played while riding a bicycle.

An 1875 sales book kept by Wingfield’s agents shows that his boxes were sold to royalty, aristocrats and members of parliament, a clever strategy to make the game highly fashionable. His other big breakthrough was to stress that this new game could be played by both sexes, and it quickly became a social hit with middle classes looking for a mixed-gender outdoor opportunity for flirting.

The All England Croquet Club joined the craze, and the museum has the handwritten minutes of a June 2, 1877 meeting of the club which decided to hold a championship in this new sport and to set up a committee to form the rules.

The minutes show that the three committee members met two days later, with Henry “Cavendish” Jones playing the lead role in tweaking Wingfield’s game in preparation for the new tournament: they lowered the net from Wingfield’s version (which was neck-high at the posts, dipping in the middle) and made the court rectangular rather than the  hourglass shape he used.  

When the tournament went ahead five weeks later, one competitor, a 27-year-old cricketer named Spencer Gore, predicted that this whole lawn tennis fad would die out because it was too monotonous. Gore added his own bit of variety by inventing the volley, which helped him to win the title match in straight sets.

The sterling silver trophy he won, the Field Cup, is on display: it was sponsored by The Field, “The Country Gentleman’s Newspaper”, which is still published each month.

Behind the scenes

An audio explanation by a head groundsman explains the intricacies of ensuring consistent grass surfaces, and other displays delve into the broadcasting, fashion, refereeing and even catering of Wimbledon (yes, yes, we know about the strawberries and cream).

The complete tennis nerd or academic researcher can contact the club in advance to ask for access to the museum’s library, which has one of the most comprehensive collections of tennis publications in the world. It has newspaper cuttings dating to 1927 and oddities such as a complete set of Italy’s Tennis Italiano, which the magazine itself does not have.

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum is open daily, 10am–5.30pm. Free entry for ticket holders during the Championships

What’s your favourite piece of Wimbledon history? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter

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