1.
All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
–
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, also known as the All-England Club, based at Church Road, Wimbledon, London, England, is a private members club. It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships, initially an amateur event that occupied club members and their friends for a few days each summer, the championships have become far more prominent than the club itself. However, it operates as a members tennis club, with many courts in use all year round. To become a full or temporary member, an applicant must obtain letters of support from four existing full members, the name is then added to the Candidates List. Honorary Members are elected from time to time by the clubs Committee, membership carries with it the right to purchase two tickets for each day of the Wimbledon Championships. The patron of the club is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and the President is The Duke of Kent. The Club was founded by six gentlemen at the offices of The Field on 23 July 1868 at the height of a croquet craze as the All England Croquet Club and its original ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon. Croquet was very popular there until the then-infant sport of lawn tennis was introduced in 1875, the first tennis Gentlemens Championship in Singles was held in July 1877, when the Club changed its name to The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. That year at Wimbledon service was underarm, the champion, Spencer Gore, opined that Lawn tennis will never rank among our great games. In 1878 the height of the net was altered to 4 feet 9 inches at the posts and 3 feet at the centre, in 1882, croquet was dropped from the name, as tennis had become the main activity of the Club. But in 1899 it was restored to the Clubs name for reasons. In 1884, the Club added Ladies Singles and Gentlemens Doubles, for the 1908 Summer Olympics, the venue hosted the Grass Courts tennis events. The early Club colours were found to be almost identical to those of the Royal Marines, so they were changed in 1909 to the present Club colours of dark green, the current Centre Court dates from that year. It has been improved and extended on several occasions, most recently a sliding roof was added in time for the 2009 Championships. In 1924 the old No.1 Court opened on the west side of Centre Court, at 5,20 p. m. on October 11,1940, five 500 pound German bombs struck the grounds, demolishing 1,200 seats in Centre Court. The old No.1 Court was replaced with the current No.1 Court in 1997, shortly afterwards, the Millennium Building, which houses facilities for players, press, officials and members, was built on the site of the old No.1 Court. The Church Road site initially extended only as far north as Centre Court, in 1967 the All England Club purchased 11 acres to the north. This was leased to the New Zealand Sports and Social Club and it is most commonly known as Henman Hill because of the popularity of former British tennis player, Tim Henman
2.
Wimbledon, London
–
Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Dundonald, Hillside, Trinity, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common is thought to have been constructed. In 1087 when the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the village developed with a stable rural population coexisting alongside nobility and wealthy merchants from the city. The location of the station shifted the focus of the subsequent growth away from the original village centre. Since 2005, the north and west of the Borough has been represented in Westminster by Stephen Hammond, the eastern and southern of the Borough are represented by Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour MP. It has established minority groups, among the most prominent are British Asians, British Ghanaians, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common, the second-largest in London, is thought to have been constructed. The original nucleus of Wimbledon was at the top of the close to the common – the area now known locally as the village. The village is referred to as Wimbedounyng in a signed by King Edgar the Peaceful in 967. The name Wimbledon means Wynnmans hill, with the element of the name being the Old English dun. At the time the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the ownership of the manor of Wimbledon changed hands many times during its history. The manor was held by the church until 1398 when Thomas Arundel, the manor was confiscated and became crown property. The manor remained crown property until the reign of Henry VIII when it was granted briefly to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, until Cromwell was executed in 1540 and the land was again confiscated. The manor was held by Henry VIIIs last wife and widow Catherine Parr until her death in 1548 when it again reverted to the monarch. In the 1550s, Henrys daughter, Mary I, granted the manor to Cardinal Reginald Pole who held it until his death in 1558 when it again become royal property. Marys sister, Elizabeth I held the property until 1574 when she gave the house to Christopher Hatton who sold it in the same year to Sir Thomas Cecil. The lands of the manor were given to the Cecil family in 1588, the Cecil family retained the manor for fifty years before it was bought by Charles I in 1638 for his Queen, Henrietta Maria. On his death in 1677 the manor was sold on again to the Lord High Treasurer, Thomas Osborne, the Osborne family sold the manor to Sir Theodore Janssen in 1712. Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, began a new house to replace the Cecil-built manor house but, due to the collapse of the company
3.
London Underground
–
The London Underground is a public rapid transit system serving London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2015–16 carried 1.34 billion passengers, the 11 lines collectively handle approximately 4.8 million passengers a day. The system has 270 stations and 250 miles of track, despite its name, only 45% of the system is actually underground in tunnels, with much of the network in the outer environs of London being on the surface. In addition, the Underground does not cover most southern parts of Greater London, the current operator, London Underground Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London, the statutory corporation responsible for the transport network in Greater London. As of 2015, 92% of operational expenditure is covered by passenger fares, the Travelcard ticket was introduced in 1983 and Oyster, a contactless ticketing system, in 2003. Contactless card payments were introduced in 2014, the LPTB was a prominent patron of art and design, commissioning many new station buildings, posters and public artworks in a modernist style. Other famous London Underground branding includes the roundel and Johnston typeface, to prepare construction, a short test tunnel was built in 1855 in Kibblesworth, a small town with geological properties similar to London. This test tunnel was used for two years in the development of the first underground train, and was later, in 1861, the worlds first underground railway, it opened in January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. It was hailed as a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, the Metropolitan District Railway opened in December 1868 from South Kensington to Westminster as part of a plan for an underground inner circle connecting Londons main-line termini. The Metropolitan and District railways completed the Circle line in 1884, built using the cut and this opened in 1890 with electric locomotives that hauled carriages with small opaque windows, nicknamed padded cells. The Waterloo and City Railway opened in 1898, followed by the Central London Railway in 1900, the Metropolitan Railway protested about the change of plan, but after arbitration by the Board of Trade, the DC system was adopted. When the Bakerloo was so named in July 1906, The Railway Magazine called it an undignified gutter title, by 1907 the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines. In January 1913, the UERL acquired the Central London Railway, the Bakerloo line was extended north to Queens Park to join a new electric line from Euston to Watford, but World War I delayed construction and trains reached Watford Junction in 1917. During air raids in 1915 people used the stations as shelters. An extension of the Central line west to Ealing was also delayed by the war, the Metropolitan promoted housing estates near the railway with the Metro-land brand and nine housing estates were built near stations on the line. Electrification was extended north from Harrow to Rickmansworth, and branches opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925, the Piccadilly line was extended north to Cockfosters and took over District line branches to Harrow and Hounslow. In 1933, most of Londons underground railways, tramway and bus services were merged to form the London Passenger Transport Board, the Waterloo & City Railway, which was by then in the ownership of the main line Southern Railway, remained with its existing owners. In the same year that the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, in the following years, the outlying lines of the former Metropolitan Railway closed, the Brill Tramway in 1935, and the line from Quainton Road to Verney Junction in 1936
4.
Summer Olympic Games
–
The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad, first held in 1896, is an international multi-sport event that is hosted by a different city every four years. The most recent Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the International Olympic Committee organizes the games and oversees the host citys preparations. In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third, the Winter Olympic Games were created due to the success of the Summer Olympics. The Olympics have increased in scope from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896 to 302 events with 10,768 competitors from 204 nations in 2012, eighteen countries have hosted the Summer Olympics. The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics, more than any other nation, four cities have hosted two Summer Olympics, Athens, Paris, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. Tokyo is the first city outside of the Western world to host the Summer Olympics multiple times, asia has hosted the Summer Olympics four times in Japan, South Korea, and China. The only Summer Olympics held in the Southern Hemisphere have been in Australia, the 2016 Games are the first Summer Olympics to be held in South America and the first to be held during the local winter season. Africa has yet to host a Summer Olympics, only five countries—Greece, Australia, France, Great Britain, and Switzerland—have been represented at every Summer Olympic Games. The only country to have won at least one medal at every Summer Olympic Games is Great Britain. The United States leads the medal table. Qualification rules for each of the Olympic sports are set by the International Sports Federations that governs that sports international competition, for individual sports, competitors typically qualify through attaining a certain place in a major international event or on the IFs ranking list. There is a rule that maximum three individual athletes may represent each nation per competition. Nations most often qualify teams for team sports through continental qualifying tournaments, each nation may be represented by no more than one team per competition a team is two people in some sports. The United States has hosted four Summer Olympic Games, more than any other nation, the United Kingdom hosted the 2012 Olympic Games, its third Summer Olympic Games, in its capital London, making London the first city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times. Australia, France, Germany, Greece, and Japan have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Other countries that have hosted the Summer Olympics are Belgium, Brazil, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union, asia has hosted the Summer Olympics three times and will host again in 2020. In 2016, Rio de Janeiro hosted the first Summer Olympics in South America, three cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games, Los Angeles, Paris, and Athens. Stockholm has hosted events at two Summer Olympic Games, having hosted the games in 1912 and the events at the 1956 Summer Olympics—which they are usually listed as jointly hosting
5.
2012 Summer Olympics
–
It took place in London and to a lesser extent across the United Kingdom from 25 July to 12 August 2012. The first event, the stage in womens football began on 25 July at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. 10,768 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees participated, London is the first and only city thus far to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948. Construction for the Games involved considerable redevelopment, with an emphasis on sustainability, the main focus was a new 200-hectare Olympic Park, constructed on a former industrial site at Stratford, East London. The Games also made use of venues that already existed before the bid, the Games received widespread acclaim for their organisation, with the volunteers, the British military and public enthusiasm praised particularly highly. During the Games, Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei entered female athletes for the first time, so that every currently eligible country has sent a female competitor to at least one Olympic Games. Womens boxing was included for the first time, thus the Games became the first at which every sport had female competitors and these were the final Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Jacques Rogge. The final medal tally was led by the United States, followed by China, several world and Olympic records were set at the games. Furthermore, the focus on sporting legacy and post-games venue sustainability was seen as a blueprint for future Olympics. On 18 May 2004, as a result of a technical evaluation. All five submitted their candidate files by 19 November 2004 and were visited by the IOC inspection team during February, throughout the process, Paris was widely seen as the favourite, particularly as this was its third bid in recent years. London was initially seen as lagging behind Paris by a considerable margin and its position began to improve after the appointment of Lord Coe as the new head of London 2012 on 19 May 2004. In late August 2004, reports predicted a tie between London and Paris, on 6 June 2005, the IOC released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. They did not contain any scores or rankings, but the report for Paris was considered the most positive, London was close behind, having closed most of the gap observed by the initial evaluation in 2004. New York and Madrid also received positive evaluations. On 1 July 2005, when asked who would win, Jacques Rogge said, but my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will come down to a difference of say ten votes, on 6 July 2005, the final selection was announced at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore. Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York, the final two contenders were London and Paris
6.
Tennis court
–
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be used to create a tennis court, Tennis is played on a rectangular flat surface, usually of grass, clay or hard material. The dimensions of a court are defined and regulated by the International Tennis Federation governing body and are written down in the annual Rules of Tennis document. The court is 78 feet long and its width is 27 feet for singles matches and 36 feet for doubles matches. The service line is 21 feet from the net, additional clear space around the court is needed in order for players to reach overrun balls for a total of 60 feet wide and 120 feet long. A net is stretched across the width of the court, parallel with the baselines. The net is 3 feet 6 inches high at the posts, the net posts are 3 feet outside the doubles court on each side or, for a singles net,3 feet outside the singles court on each side. Tennis is played on a variety of surfaces and each surface has its own characteristics which affect the style of the game. There are four types of courts depending on the materials used for the court surface, clay courts, hard courts, grass courts. The Australian Open switched to hard courts in 1988 and in its years the French championship alternated between clay and sand/rubble courts. ITF uses the classification for tennis court surface types, Clay courts are made of crushed shale, stone. The French Open is the only Grand Slam tournament to use clay courts, Clay courts slow down the ball and produce a high bounce in comparison to grass courts or hard courts. For this reason, the court takes away many of the advantages of big serves. Clay courts are cheaper to construct than other types of tennis courts, Clay courts need to be rolled to preserve flatness. The clays water content must be balanced, green courts generally require the courts to be sloped to allow water run-off, Clay courts are more common in Europe and Latin America than in North America and tend to heavily favour baseline players. Grass courts are the fastest type of courts in common use and they consist of grass grown on very hard-packed soil, which adds additional variables, bounces depend on how healthy the grass is, how recently it has been mown, and the wear and tear of recent play
7.
1877 Wimbledon Championship
–
The 1877 Wimbledon Championship was a mens tennis tournament held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London. It was the worlds first official lawn tennis tournament, and was recognised as the first Grand Slam tournament or Major. The AEC & LTC had been founded in July 1868, as the All England Croquet Club, in June 1877 the club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, needed to maintain the lawns. A set of rules was drawn up for the tournament, derived from the first standardised rules of tennis issued by the Marylebone Cricket Club in May 1875. The Gentlemens Singles competition, the event of the championship, was contested on grass courts by 22 players who each paid one guinea to participate. The tournament started on 9 July 1877, and the final – delayed for three days by rain – was played on 19 July in front of a crowd of about 200 people who paid an entry fee of one shilling. The winner received 12 guineas in prize money and a challenge cup, valued at 25 guineas. The tournament made a profit of £10 and the pony roller remained in use, an analysis made after the tournament led to some modifications of the rules regarding the court dimensions. The origin of tennis lies in the cloisters in 12th-century France. Rackets were introduced to the game in the early 16th century, the prominence of the game declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, although there are sporadic mentions of a long tennis or field tennis version in the second half of the 18th century. Between 1858 and 1873 several people in Victorian England experimented with a version of tennis. Major Harry Gem and Augurio Perera demonstrated their game of Pelota, Wingfield is widely credited with popularising the new game through his energetic promotional efforts. The Sphairistikè court was hourglass-shaped, wider at the baseline than at the net, the service was made from a single side in a lozenge shaped box situated in the middle of the court and it had to bounce beyond the service line. In November 1874 Wingfield published a second, expanded edition of The Book of the Game, which had 12 rules and featured a larger court and a slightly lower net. The All England Croquet Club was founded on 23 July 1868 by six gentlemen at the offices of The Field, a weekly country and sports magazine. After a yearlong search a suitable ground of four acres of meadowland was located between the London and South Western Railway and Worple Road in Wimbledon, then a suburb of London. The clubs committee decided on 24 September 1869 to lease the ground and paid £50 rental for the first year, the increasing rent, coupled with a waning interest in the sedate sport of croquet, was causing the club financial difficulties. In February 1875 it decided to introduce lawn tennis at its grounds to capitalise on the growing interest in this new sport and generate additional revenue
8.
Retractable roof
–
A retractable roof is a roof system designed to roll back the roof on tracks so that the interior of the facility is open to the outdoors. Retractable roofs are sometimes referred to as operable roofs or retractable skylights, the term operable skylight, while quite similar, refers to a skylight that opens on a hinge, rather than on a track. Retractable roofs are used in residences, restaurants and bars, swim centres, as Rollamatic was founded five years earlier, the first installation of a motorized retractable roof must be between 1958 and 1963. While any shape is possible, common shapes are flat, ridge, hip-ridge, barrel, a residence might incorporate one or more 3 by 5 retractables, a bar or restaurant a retractable roof measuring 20 by 30, and a meeting hall a 50 by 100 bi-parting-over-stationary. Installations throughout the world employ a variety of different configurations and styles, the first retractable roof sports venue was the now-demolished Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec was slated to be the first outdoor retractable roof stadium at its debut for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games, however, plagued by construction problems, the roof was not installed until 1987, and was not retractable until 1988. Even then, movement of the roof was impossible in high wind conditions, a permanent, fixed roof was installed in 1998. By contrast, the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario had a functional retractable roof at its debut in 1989. Architecturally speaking, retractable roofs vary greatly from stadium to stadium in shape, material, for example, Miller Park has a fan style roof, while Toyota Stadium in Japan has an accordion-like roof. Most retractable roofs are made of metal, while some, such as the roof of University of Phoenix Stadium, are made of water-resistant fabric, in North American major sports leagues, specific rules exist governing the movement of retractable roofs before and during gameplay. These rules vary between the NFL and MLB, as well as from stadium to stadium, depending on the stadium, weather or gameplay conditions, and the judgment of the officials, play may or may not continue until the roof is fully closed. If the game begins with the closed, it may be opened under some circumstances depending on the venue. If it is closed after the game begins, typically it must remain closed for the duration of the game, some modern athletic facilities are using affordable, less complex roof systems that resemble retractable roofs in appearance and effect. These roof systems, commonly referred to as open roofs, are constructed with similar materials as retractable roofs, most open roof companies offer polycarbonate or tempered glass roofs for safer sports play and durability. Hinged at the structures gutters, open roofs fully close and open by the mechanics of a rack, comparable to the benefits of retractable roofs, open roof systems offer players year-long usage, protection from inclement weather when needed, and the feeling of an outdoor environment. Open roofs are seen at smaller athletic venues such as country clubs. Both retractable roof and open roof systems are used in the construction of commercial greenhouses. CBC archives The architect explains the system for the Rogers Centre in Toronto
9.
Steffi Graf
–
Stefanie Maria Steffi Graf is a German former tennis player, who was ranked world No.1 during her career. Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles and her 22 singles titles puts her second on the list of Major wins by a tennis player since the introduction of the Open Era in 1968 and is third all-time behind Margaret Court and Serena Williams. In 1988, she became the first and only player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles. Furthermore, she is the tennis player to have won each Grand Slam event at least four times. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTAs all-time list after Martina Navratilova and she and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three grand slams in a calendar year five times. Notable features of Grafs game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork, Graf won six French Open singles titles, seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U. S. Open singles titles. She is the singles player to have achieved a Grand Slam since hard court was introduced as a surface at the US Open in 1978. Consequently, Grafs Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, Graf reached thirteen consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won 5 consecutive Majors, and seven Majors out of eight and she reached a total of 31 Grand Slam singles finals. Graf is regarded by some to be the greatest female player of all time. Navratilova included Graf on her list of great players, in 1999 Billie Jean King said Steffi is definitely the greatest womens tennis player of all time. In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, in March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. Graf retired in 1999 while she was ranked World No.3 and she married former World No.1 mens tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. The couple have two children – Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle, Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and Peter Graf, when she was nine years old her family moved to the neighbouring town of Bruhl. She has a younger brother Michael, Graf was introduced to tennis by her father, an aspiring tennis coach, who taught his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the familys living room. She began practicing on a court at the age of four and she soon began winning junior tournaments with regularity, and in 1982 she won the European Championships 12s and 18s
10.
Tim Henman
–
Timothy Henry Tim Henman OBE is a retired English professional tennis player. Henman played a style of tennis. He was the first male player from the United Kingdom since Roger Taylor in the 1970s to reach the semi-finals of the Wimbledon Mens Singles Championship. Henman never reached the finals of any Grand Slam but reached six Grand Slam semifinals and won 15 career ATP titles, also, he scored 40 wins and 14 losses with the Great Britain Davis Cup team. Henman was ranked British number 1 in 1996 and again from 1999 to 2005 and he reached a career high ranking of World No.4 during three different periods between July 2002 and October 2004. He is one of Britains most successful open era male tennis players, in the 2004 New Year Honours, he was appointed an OBE. Henman started playing tennis before the age of three, and began training in the Slater Squad at eleven. After suffering a injury which affected him for the better part of two years, he began touring internationally as a junior and achieved some successes. He rose quickly up the ATP rankings, and by 1996 had reached the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon Championships, the year 2005 began a decline for Henman, and from that year onwards he never managed to pass through the third round in a Grand Slam tournament. Henman retired from tennis in late 2007, but he remains active in the ATP Champions Tour. Henman was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, as the youngest of a family of three boys, Henmans father Tony, a solicitor, was accomplished at various sports, including tennis, hockey and squash. His mother Jane, a designer, played Junior Wimbledon and introduced Tim and his elder brothers Michael. His great grandfather played at Wimbledon and his maternal grandfather, Henry Billington, played at Wimbledon between 1948 and 1951, and he represented Britain in the Davis Cup in 1948,1950 and 1951. In 1901 his maternal great-grandmother, Ellen Stanwell-Brown, was reputedly the first woman to serve overarm at Wimbledon, Henman grew up in Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, a village between Oxford and Bicester with a population of around 500. At home, the owned a grass tennis court in their back garden. Henman began playing tennis before the age of three with a shortened squash racket, at this stage, he was already teaching himself how to serve and volley. At an early stage in his life, Henman decided if he did not succeed in tennis, Henman attended the Longbridge School for boys between the ages of five and seven, and was enrolled in the private Dragon School in Oxford from seven to 11. He excelled in all sports but was always best at tennis, but Henman was small for his age, a factor which would bode against him in the future
11.
Kim Clijsters
–
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters is a former world No.1 in both singles and doubles, Clijsters won 41 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She won four Grand Slam singles titles, three at the US Open, in 2005,2009, and 2010 and one at the Australian Open in 2011. She was also runner-up in four Grand Slam singles tournaments and won the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002,2003, in doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003. She was also runner-up in two Grand Slam doubles tournaments, one WTA Championships doubles tournament, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles tournament, in 2001, Clijsters was part of the Belgium Fed Cup winning team. In June 2011, TIME magazine named her one of the 30 Legends of Womens Tennis, Past, Present, according to Forbes in August 2011, she became the fifth highest-paid female athlete over the previous year. On 20 May 2012, Clijsters, who had announced that 2012 would be her last season. On 29 August 2012, Clijsters played her last singles match of her career at the 2012 US Open where she lost in the round to Laura Robson. Clijsters has a powerful physique that combines naturally with a baseline game. The Belgian is equipped with an array of powerful and deep forehand and backhand shots and her forehand, although at times erratic, is her main weapon. She is easily able to play with her forehand and she is capable of hitting winners from any position on the court. An accomplished doubles player, Clijsters has a net game. She often mixes up her aggressive-style play with drop shots and backhand slices to draw her opponents into the net and she also has a very solid over-head and is noted for her quick transition from the baseline to the net to finish points. Clijsters first serve is not overwhelmingly powerful, but is placed well, when timed correctly, her serve can be considered a major weapon. Clijsters is also recognised for her all-court defence, characterized by her speed and athleticism. Clijsters is one of few players on the WTA tour who can slide on all surfaces, Maria Sharapova, interviewed after losing to Clijsters in the 2005 Nasdaq-100 Open, said, You just have to expect that shes going to get every ball back. Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, Limburg and she is the daughter of Lei Clijsters, a former international footballer, and Els Vandecaetsbeek, a former national gymnastics champion. Lei Clijsters died of cancer on 4 January 2009
Southfields
