Wimbledon 2024: Your ultimate guide

With the French Open now over, attention has turned to the grass-court season which began on June 10 and will end with Wimbledon next month.

Novak Djokovic is a major doubt for the tournament after knee surgery while Emma Raducanu is hoping for a wildcard. It could also be the final time Andy Murray plays at SW19 if he decides to retire later this year.

One player who will not be at Wimbledon is Rafael Nadal, who has confirmed he will miss the Championships as he sets his sights on the Olympics.

He said: “I am saddened not to be able to live this year the great atmosphere of that amazing event that will always be in my heart, and be with all the British fans that always gave me great support. I will miss you all.”

When does Wimbledon start?

The 2024 Championships will take place from July 1 to July 14.

When does Wimbledon qualifying start?

This year’s qualifying competition takes place from Monday, June 24 to Thursday, June 27.

When do the Wimbledon finals take place?

The women’s final will be played on Saturday, July 13, followed by the men’s final on Sunday, July 14.

Where is Wimbledon held?

The tournament will take place, as ever, at the All England Lawn Tennis Club on Church Road, Wimbledon. They have been held on this site since 1922, when the championships were moved from their previous location on Worple Road.

How to buy Wimbledon tickets

The public Wimbledon ballot is closed, meaning that most tickets for the show courts are unavailable. However, one of the traditions of Wimbledon is ‘The Queue’. Every day fans can queue for a ticket to one of the show courts or for a grounds pass, depending on what is available by the time they reach the front of the queue.

Each day 500 tickets for Centre Court (excluding last four days), No 1 court, and No 2 court are sold. A grounds pass entitles fans to access to all courts apart from the show courts.

Resale tickets for Centre Court, No.1 Court and No.2 Court are available from 3pm each day, from the Ticket Resale kiosk north of Court 18.

For more ticket information, click here.

How to watch Wimbledon on TV and streaming in the UK

The BBC will broadcast the event on BBC One, BBC Two and iPlayer. Clare Balding will lead the presenting team again after replacing Sue Barker last year and is likely to be joined by former Wimbledon champions, including John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and Pat Cash.

2021 champion Ash Barty and 2022 finalist Nick Kyrgios are part of the punditry team but latter’s hiring has been criticised. Caroline Nokes, the women and equalities committee chair, said the corporation should “hang its head in shame” for agreeing terms after he admitted assaulting an ex-girlfriend in 2023.

By UK law, Wimbledon is a ‘Category B’ television event, meaning that although the men’s and women’s finals must always remain free-to-air there is no guarantee that the rest of the tournament will not one day be shown on pay TV.

How to watch the Wimbledon on TV in the US

ESPN has the rights to show 140+ hours of coverage from Wimbledon in the US. In 2021, ESPN signed a 12-year agreement to broadcast the event. Coverage begins each day at 6am Eastern Time.

When is the Wimbledon draw?

The Wimbledon draw will take place on June 28, one day after the qualifying tournament begins and three days before the tournament itself.

What is the Wimbledon prize money?

In 2024, total prize money is £50 million, up 11.9 per cent from last year. The men’s and women’s singles champions will take home £2.7 million each. First-round losers in the singles will receive £60,000.

In 2023, the total prize pool was £44.7 million with the men’s and women’s singles champions taking home £2.35 million and the runners-up £1.175 million.

Wimbledon court and stadium guide

Wimbledon has five show courts: Centre Court, No 1 Court, No 2 Court, No 3 Court, Court 12 and Court 18. Centre is the largest court at the All England Club and features the famous Royal Box. The court capacity on Centre is 14,974 while Court 1 can hold 12,345.

There are 12 other grass courts in use throughout the tournament. Court 8 was where an 18-year-old John McEnroe took his SW19 bow against Egypt’s Ismail El Shafei in 1977.

In 1995, on court 14, Tim Henman became the first player to be disqualified from Wimbledon when playing in a doubles match with Jeremy Bates against America’s Jeff Tarango and Sweden’s Henrik Holm when he whacked a ball in anger, accidentally hitting 16-year-old ball girl Caroline Hall in the head.

Latest news

Rafael Nadal has confirmed that he will miss Wimbledon this year in order to focus on the Olympic Games, which will be played on the clay courts of Roland Garros from July 27 to August 4.

Posting on social media, Nadal said “During my post-match press conference at Roland Garros I was asked about my summer calendar and since then I have been practising on clay. It was announced yesterday that I will play at the summer Olympics in Paris, my last Olympics.

“With this goal, we believe that the best for my body is not to change surface and keep playing on clay until then. It’s for this reason that I will miss playing at the Championships this year at Wimbledon. I am saddened not to be able to live this year the great atmosphere of that amazing event that will always be in my heart, and be with all the British fans that always gave me great support. I will miss you all.”

Nadal also confirmed that he will use the clay-court event in Bastad, Sweden, as a warm-up for the Olympics. The dates of the ATP 250 tournament there run from July 25 to 21.

It seems increasingly likely that Nadal’s final outing on the grass of Wimbledon has already taken place, and that he finished with a win: the five-set victory over the USA’s Taylor Fritz in the 2022 quarter-finals. Nadal suffered a 7mm tear in his abdominal muscle during that match and was forced to withdraw from his semi-final meeting with Nick Kyrgios two days later.

This problem would linger, contributing to the fact that Nadal contested only 13 matches in 18 months following the Fritz match, although a hip injury sustained at the 2023 Australian Open would prove even more problematic.

When Nadal returned to the match court at the start of this season, he was only averaging around 100mph on his first serve – probably the lowest figure on the tour – because he was concerned about reinjuring his abdominal muscles. He has since picked that figure up, however, and produced a high level of tennis in his first-round loss to eventual runner-up Alexander Zverev at the recent French Open.

If Nadal does not play Wimbledon again, he will finish with a record of 58 victories from 70 matches, including two titles and three other visits to the final. It is a staggering achievement from a player who barely saw grass courts until he entered the professional game, and whose long, flourishing forehand swing looked – on the fact of things – to be ill-suited to Wimbledon’s skiddy conditions.

In the latter part of his career, however, Nadal was an intermittent visitor because the squatting body position required by grass-court tennis played havoc with his creaky knees. His 2022 visit to Wimbledon is the only one he has made in the last five years.

British players at Wimbledon

Andy Murray, Katie Boulter, Cameron Norrie, Harriet Dart, Daniel Evans and Jack Draper are all on the main draw entry list.

Using her special ranking, Emma Raducanu is seventh on the alternates list for the main draw and is likely to receive a wildcard.

Who are the defending champions?

Last year, Carlos Alcaraz claimed his first Wimbledon title when he defeated Novak Djokovic in five sets.

Marketa Vondrousova claimed her first grand slam title when she overcame Ons Jabeur in straight sets.

Past Wimbledon winners

The Wimbledon trophies

The men play for the gentlemen’s singles trophy which is 18 inches high and has a diameter of 7.5 inches.

The women play for the Venus Rosewater Dish, which is a silver salver with mythological decoration.

The champion at the end of the tournament receives a three-quarter size replica of their respective trophy which bears the names of all past winners.

Latest odds

To win the men’s title

• Carlos Alcaraz 17/10

• Jannik Sinner 7/4

• Novak Djokovic 9/2

• Alexander Zverev 16/1

To win the women’s title

• Aryna Sabalenka 10/3

• Iga Swiatek 4/1

• Elena Rybakina 9/2

• Coco Gauff 8/1