Youngest champion
Britain’s own Lottie Dod was just 15 years and 285 days old when she won the women’s title. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of her, it’s because Dod claimed her victory in 1887. Still, she is worthy of mention not only because she won Wimbledon fi ve times in all but also because she went on to win the British Ladies amateur golf championship, represent England at hockey and claim an Olympic silver at archery in 1908

Worst backing singers
June 1996 and rain stops play. Sir Cliff Richard steps in to perform to the bored crowd. It gets worse. On backing vocals and orchestrating the hand-clapping are Virginia Wade, Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver, Gigi Fernandez and Conchita Martinez. Amazingly, sponsors do not withdraw en masse. Memo to Wimbledon organisers: if you’re going to try this again, don’t ask Cliff and see if you can get a better backing group. How about Sharapova, Kournikova and Ivanovic, to pluck three names entirely at random?

Shameless attempt to catch a picture editor’s eye (1)
Step forward Tatiana Golovin and her eye-catching underwear. The first question the 19-year-old French player fielded after her victory last year over Su-Wei Hsieh was about her knickers. Her reply? ‘They say red is the colour that proves that you’re strong and you’re confi dent, so I’m happy with my red knickers’

Most tearful outpouring
Czech Jana Novotna finally found a use for the Duchess of Kent, converting the royal’s shoulderpads into a makeshift hankie as she broke down after squandering a 4-1 third set lead over Steffi Graf in the 1993 final. Second prize here, we suspect, goes to Novotna's agent as she kissed goodbye to the extra 10% she would have been creaming off from sponsorship deals and appearance fees if her client had won

Services to the advancement of the women’s game
A year before Wimbledon finally joined the US and Australian Opens in offering equal prize money to male and female competitors, Britain’s Andy Murray waded into the debate. “I think the majority of people who come to watch during the first week at Wimbledon will be coming to watch one of the male matches,” this spokesperson for the feminist cause said in 2006. What he forgot to add was that anyone coming in the second week was highly unlikely to see any game featuring himself

Shameless attempt to catch a picture editor’s eye (2)
She may have exited in the first round but Emmanuelle Gagliardi left her mark last year when she recreated the famous Athena poster pose. Tabloid sports editors broke out into high fives as the vexed question of how to illustrate the inside back page was solved

Chief grunter
Still no answer as to why it’s only women who go in for this or why it should have got worse of late, but it has. In 2004, Maria Sharapova was found to have hit a level of 86.3 decibels during her quarter-final victory against Ai Sugiyama, though Serena Williams was not far behind on 77.6 decibels. The title still belongs, however, to Monica Seles. During her 1992 quarter-final, the Yugoslav reached an impressive 93.2 decibels