How well do you know Wimbledon, where play begins Monday? Give this quiz a try:
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1st Round: How many women won at least one of the first 18 WTA tournaments this season?
a.) 8
b.) 12
c.) 16
d.) 18
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2nd Round: Tiebreakers will be played at the All England Club in the third sets of women’s matches and fifth sets of men’s matches for the first time this year. When will those tiebreakers be used?
a.) 6-all
b.) 9-all
c.) 12-all
d.) 15-all
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3rd Round: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have combined to win the past 10 Grand Slam titles. What is that trio’s longest such streak of consecutive major championships?
a.) 18
b.) 20
c.) 22
d.) 24
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4th Round: Who was Roger Federer’s partner when he made his Grand Slam doubles debut at Wimbledon in 1999? (Bonus: To whom did they lose?)
a.) Stan Wawrinka
b.) Andre Agassi
c.) Lleyton Hewitt
d.) Pete Sampras
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Quarterfinal: Who holds the record for youngest Wimbledon champion in singles, doubles or mixed doubles?
a.) Boris Becker
b.) Martina Hingis
c.) Bjorn Borg
d.) Jennifer Capriati
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Semifinal: How many times has Serena Williams played in the Wimbledon singles final?
a.) 8
b.) 9
c.) 10
d.) 11
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Final: Wimbledon was first contested in 1877. What was the first year that the defending champion needed to win more than one match to retain the title?
a.) 1882
b.) 1892
c.) 1912
d.) 1922
e.) 1932
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ANSWERS
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1st Round. d. The 18-champs-at-18-events was the longest such streak to begin a WTA season. It wasn’t until Petra Kvitova, a two-time winner at Wimbledon, took the trophy at Stuttgart, Germany, in April that the women’s tour had a two-time champion in 2019.
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2nd Round. c. The 26-24 fifth set won in last year’s semifinals by Kevin Anderson against John Isner - he of 70-68 fame - moved the All England Club to add first-to-seven, win-by-two-points final-set tiebreakers at 12-12 for this year’s tournament. The Australian Open also finally added tiebreakers in deciding sets in January, but those were first-to-10, played at 6-all. Until this year, only the U.S. Open used last-set tiebreakers, doing so at 6-all. The French Open is now the only Grand Slam tournament that eschews a tiebreaker in the fifth set for men or third set for women.
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3rd Round. a. Their longest run started with Nadal’s victory at the French Open in 2005 and ended with Federer’s at Wimbledon in 2009. In that stretch, Federer won 11 major titles, Nadal six and Djokovic one. This time, it’s Nadal with four, and Federer and Djokovic with three apiece.
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4th Round. c. Back before Federer won any of his 20 Grand Slam singles titles, or Hewitt collected either of his two, they were partners at the All England Club, reaching the third round before losing a five-setter to Pat Rafter and Jonas Bjorkman 20 years ago.
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Quarterfinal. b. Hingis was 15 years, 282 days old when she won the 1996 Wimbledon women’s doubles title with Helena Suková. That’s three days younger than Lottie Dod was when she won the 1887 singles championship. Becker was 17 when he won Wimbledon for the first time in 1985, making him the tournament’s youngest men’s singles champion. Borg (17 in 1973) and Capriati (14 in 1990) were the youngest seeded players in men’s and women’s singles.
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Semifinal. c. Williams has won the singles trophy at Wimbledon seven times, most recently in 2016. She was the runner-up three times, most recently last year. Martina Navratilova holds tournament records of 12 appearances in a singles final and nine singles titles.
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Final. d. Until 1922, the previous year’s champion at the All England Club automatically advanced to the championship match, facing the winner of what was known as the All Comers’ Event.
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