The Championships
Among the features that differentiate The Championships from the other Grand Slams are that they are played on grass courts, they require the players to wear white, and they schedule a day off on the middle Sunday of the tournament. The winner of the men's singles at The Championships receives a gold trophy inscribed with the words: "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World".
The Championships attract attendance of 450,000 people. Ninety per cent of the financial surplus that the club generates from running The Championships are used to develop tennis in Great Britain; in 1998–2008, the surplus ranged from £25–33 million per year. The Championships are run by a Committee of Management that consists of 12 club members and seven nominees of The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). The 2009 Committee included the following club members: Timothy Dewe Phillips CBE (Chairman), PGH Brook, JS Dunningham, RM Gradon, IL Hewitt, Miss. DA Jevans, Mrs. AS Jones MBE, Mr. MA King, Mr. TH Henman OBE, GM Newton, JC Tatum, and KF Weatherley. Phillips indicated, in November 2008, that The Championships would weather the then-current economic crisis better than other sporting events, because of long-term contracts and its popularity.
In 2003, a long-standing tradition of Centre Court players bowing or curtseying to the Royal Box was scrapped by order of the Duke of Kent, President of the club since 1969, who deemed it an anachronism in modern times. The only exception would be if the Queen or the Prince of Wales were to attend. Andy Murray and Jarkko Nieminen elected to bow when the Queen visited The Championships for their 2010 2nd Round match, as did Roger Federer and Fabio Fognini at their 2nd round match, watched by the Prince of Wales, in 2012.
In 2006, Phillips said that paying men and women equal prize money at The Championships was something they "fundamentally don’t think would be fair on the men." But the following year Phillips announced that The Championships would pay men and women equal prize money in 2007 for the first time. The decision overturned more than a century of inequality in pay, and brought the tournament more into line with the other three annual grand slam tennis events, which all pay men and women champions the same amount. Philips insisted that the club had not caved in to pressure from politicians, female tennis players, and women’s rights campaigners.
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