A temple of tennis tradition
Above the players’ entrance to Centre Court, which seats 15,000 spectators, lines from the poem If by Rudyard Kipling read:
If you can meet with
Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two
impostors just the same
These verses encapsulate the event’s philosophy because, at Wimbledon, the greatness of the sport lies not in victory but in the humility and perseverance of the champions.