The 2008 Qualifying competition will be held from 16 - 20 June at the Bank of England Sports Club at Roehampton.
The Official Wimbledon Webite will be following the Qualifying event from the Bank of England Sports Ground at Roehampton with live point-by-point scores and regular news updates.
Players entering the singles events must play three rounds on grass in the week before The Championships. Unlike The Championships, there is no single 'winner' of Qualifying. Instead the players who win all three rounds — 16 in the Gentlemen's Singles and 12 in the Ladies' Singles — will progress, along with four pairs in each of the Ladies' and Men's Doubles events.
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From 1919 entries for The Championships were so numerous that it was necessary to restrict the numbers accepted.
The entries fell into two categories: those players nominated by their national associations and individual nominations. The former were accepted without question, but the latter were subjected to a careful scrutiny by a sub-committee of five, including the Referee.
In 1925, a Qualifying competition for the five Championship events was held for the first time, at the Roehampton Club, London in the week before The Championships.
For many years the Qualifying stage was split between the north and south of England in order to reduce the travelling of players who, in those days, were amateurs. That separation was discontinued in 1966. All players who enter the Qualifying competition now receive prize money.
Pre-qualifying
From 1983 to 2003, The Lawn Tennis Association held a Wimbledon Pre-Qualifying singles events two weeks before The Championships to determine the British players who would compete in the Qualifying competition. Entries were restricted to players who were classified as British according to rule 35 of the 'Rules of the LTA'.
In the early years, the number of players accepted into the pre-qualifying competition varied from year to year. From 1993 to 1998 entry was restricted to 48 gentlemen and 32 ladies. In 2004 the pre-qualifying events were discontinued and amalgamated with the LTA Wild Card Play-off competitions.
In 2007 the LTA chose a number of British players based on their world rankings and awarded them wild cards into the Wimbledon Singles Main Draw. The British players who did not get chosen played in a Wimbledon Qualifying Wild Card Play-offs Event which took place between 12th and 15th June at the AELTC Sports Ground in Raynes Park, London with the chance to earn a place in the Qualifying draw.
Successful qualifiers
For many qualifiers simply reaching the main event at Wimbledon is an achievement in itself, but some qualifiers have gone on to excel in the main draw. John McEnroe rose to prominence in 1977 when, as an 18-year-old qualifier, he reached the semi-finals of the Men's Singles, where he lost to Jimmy Connors.
More recently, in 2000 Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus also reached the semi-final round of Wimbledon where he lost to the eventual champion, Pete Sampras.
In the Ladies' Singles, Alexandra Stevenson of the USA beat another qualifier, the Yugoslav Jelena Dokic, in the quarter-finals in 1999. Stevenson lost in the semi-finals to Lindsay Davenport, who went on to win the title that year. |
