You’ve got to have a lot of balls: Wimbledon by numbers
How many strawberries are consumed, how many petunias purchased and just how much racket string is required at the world’s oldest tennis championships? Lotte Brundle serves up the numbers.


Tennis fans rejoice! Grab your tennis whites, pop the champers and prepare your gut for a diet made up exclusively of strawberries, cream, bubbles and Pimms. Wimbledon is back. The Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world — and the most famous. It’s been held most years since 1877 and this year’s competition runs until July 13, at the All England Club in London. If Wimbledon’s own predictions come true then Jack Draper, the World Number Four seed and Britain’s Number One player, will face off against Novak Djokovic, a seven time champion, in the quarter-finals.
Those are some of the numbers floating around on the court, but what about off it? Here at Country Life, our Wimbledon-themed curiosity has reached break point: How many glasses of Pimms are consumed at the annual event? How about litres of cream? And, just how many tennis balls does it take to run the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world?
Here is everything we think you need to know — in numerical form.
3↓
How many days it took John Isner — in 11 hours and 5 minutes — to defeat Nicolas Mahut in a first-round match
7↓
The number of years since records began in 1922 that it has not rained at Wimbledon (1931, 1976, 1977, 1993, 1995, 2009, 2010)
8↓
The number in precise millimetres that the grass on each court must be
15↓
Lottie Dod’s age when she became the youngest ever winner of the Ladie’s Singles title, in 1887, gaining her the nickname, ‘The Little Wonder’
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17↓
Boris Becker’s age when he became the youngest ever winner of the Gentleman’s Singles title
18↓
Match courts
20↓
Practice courts
20↓
Onsite gardeners tasked with keeping the shrubbery looking ace
40↓
The number of miles of racket string strung
40↓
Physiotherapists to help the players recuperate
41↓
The age that Arthur Gore was when he won the Gentleman’s Single’s title in 1909 — making him the oldest ever winner
47↓
The number of years that Rolex have been involved as the Championship's official timekeeper
123↓
The number of balls that Isner and Mahut used in their famously long, three-day match
138↓
Their match featured five sets, including a 138-point fifth set
153↓
The speed in mph of the fastest-ever serve at Wimbledon, by Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, yesterday.
204↓
The most aces played in one Championship (Isner in 2018)
280↓
The number of ball boys and girls
300↓
The number of chefs required to feed the thousands of visitors
370 vs 2,000↓
The number of people who work on Wimbledon full-time versus seasonally
More than 7,000↓
Litres of cream poured liberally over strawberries
14,979↓
Centre Court seats (pictured in 1937)
26,455 ↓
The number of people who attended the 2024 Championships
28,000↓
The number of plants brought in to decorate the 2025 Wimbledon ground, including 5,000 hydrangeas and 12,000 petunias
55,000↓
Yellow tennis balls
300,000↓
The total glasses of Pimms served each year
Hollywood actress Zendaya (Challengers) picked up a cup of Pimm's when she attended in 2024.
2.5 million↓
Individual strawberries consumed every year
7.5 million↓
TV viewers who tuned in to watch Carlos Alcarez beat Djokovic, live, in 2024’s men’s final
Lotte is Country Life's Digital Writer. Before joining in 2025, she was checking commas and writing news headlines for The Times and The Sunday Times as a sub-editor. She got her start in journalism at The Fence where she was best known for her Paul Mescal coverage. She reluctantly lives in noisy south London, a far cry from her wholesome Kentish upbringing.
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