The Wimbledon Championships this year was 131st edition of the Grand Slam tournament. Wimbledon is the oldest (founded in 1877) and regarded as the most prestigious among the 4 Grand Slam tournaments including Australian Open, Roland Garros, and US Open. Wimbledon follows the tradition of the players wearing white clothes.
Garbine Muguruza from Spain won this year after defeating Venus Williams with 7-5, 6-0. Muguruza, currently ranked No. 5 by the women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has previously played in her first Grand Slam final against Serena Williams in Wimbledon 2015 and lost.
In 2016, she won the 2016 French Open, achieving her career-high ranking no. 2.
Here are the other great tennis players who have won Wimbledon single titles multiple times.
Martina Navratilova
Navratilova of USA has won the most Wimbledon single titles in the ladies’ division with 9 titles out of her total 18 Grand Slam single titles. She is considered as one of the best female players of all times. According to Wikipedia, Navratilova won Wimbledon in 6 consecutive years, the best performance by any professional player at a major event. She earned a total of 20 Wimbledon titles (singles and doubles), an all-time record she shares with Billie Jean King.
Helen Wills
Wills, also from the USA, follows Navratilova with 8 Wimbledon single titles.
She was surpassed by Navratilova in 1990. Wills usually plays practice matches against men to hone her skills. In 1933, she defaulted in her match against Helen Hull Jacobs due to a back injury. After recuperating, she returned to tennis in 1935 and won another Wimbledon singles title and again in 1938 before retiring permanently.
Chambers, Graf, and Williams
Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chamers of the U.K., Steffi Graf of Germany and Serena Williams of USA are tied for third place; each won single Wimbledon titles seven times. Chambers made her debut at Wimbledon in 1900 and won her first title in 1903. In 1919, she played against Suzanne Lenglen with 44 games, which was the longest Wimbledon final the time.
Graf is well known to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same year. Williams won her latest Wimbledon title in 2016 and announced a hiatus from tennis until 2018 due to pregnancy. Williams won her first Wimbledon singles title in 2002 when she defeated the two-time defending champion, her sister, Venus Williams.
Bingley, Lenglen, and King
Blanch Bingley Hillyard of the U.K., Suzanne Lenglen of France and Billie Jean King all won Wimbledon singles 6 times. Bingley competed in the first ever Wimbledon championships for women, in 1884, where she lost to Maud Watson who eventually won the tournament. After two years, Bingley won her first titles.
At the age of 36, she won her last Wimbledon title but continued to compete until the age of 49 in 1913.
Lenglen, named La Divine by the French press, has an amazing career record of 341-7 (97.99%). After Wimbledon resumed in 1919 after World War I, Lenglen made her debut in the tournament. Chambers failed to defend her title against Lenglen, winning her first Wimbledon title.
King won 2 Wimbledon singles titles in the Amateur era and 4 in the Open era, with a total of 20 Wimbledon titles. At the age of 14, King won her first junior championship and told her family that she would one day win the prestigious Wimbledon. In 1967 King won her first Wimbledon title. King is an advocate for gender equality, and in 1937, she won the Battle of the Sexes against Bobby Riggs. She founded the Women’s Tennis Association later on.