The Championships at the All England Club began in 1877 and have been played annually since then except in wartime. Wimbledon remains the only Slam still played on grass. For traditionalists, grass-court tennis remains the classic expression of the game, though the low and fast grass-court bounce alters how the game is played.
 
In general, grass and other fast courts help the attacking player, while slow courts, like clay, favor the defender. The ball bouncing on grass retains more of its forward velocity than on most other surfaces, producing a skid, making the ball difficult to reach and return. Also the bounce is often irregular. Thus coming to net becomes more advantageous than on other surfaces. The net player not only avoids the miseries of the grass-court bounce, but also sees his or her own volleys skid rapidly across opponent's terrain or, if hit softly, stay low after bouncing.
 
Further, on grass the sliced serve gains over the overspin serve in exploiting the skid effect, while backhands with underspin likewise gain over the power stroke. Finally, with less time for shot preparation and execution than on slower, truer surfaces, short backswings help in reducing errors in ground-stroking. Rallies tend to be short.
 
FIRST-STRIKE TENNIS
 
Serve-and-volley tennis--attacking net directly behind one's serve--was once almost universal among top players, especially on grass. In the years after World War II when three of the four Slams were played on that surface, first the post-war Americans led by Kramer, then the parade of Australians starting with Sedgman, became world champions behind serve-and-volley styles. The trend remained strong in the early Open Era, well into the 1990's.
 
Various factors explained a shift to a baseline-oriented style, which became complete in the early 2000's. More powerful rackets made of metal or composite materials became widely used, which helped serve-returners more than servers, baseline strokers more than net artists. Also the shift away from grass courts at U.S. and Australian Opens caused aspiring pros to focus their training on skills and styles tuned to other surfaces. Finally, the grass-court bounce at Wimbledon has been slightly slowed of late with the introduction of grass varieties that are rougher in texture and tournament balls that are softer.
 
But if the bounce speed on grass has been slowed, it remains faster at Wimbledon than at the other Slams. A good indicator is the effectiveness of the serve, where data from the last four rounds of recent Slams show that the percentages of points won by aces is still greatest at Wimbledon:
 
--Wimbledon 06-08, 8.9%
--U.S. Open 06-08, 7.8%
--Australian Open 06-09, 7.3%
--French Open 06-09, 5.5%
 
Data obtained starting in 2001 showing percentages of games and points won by servers yield the same order among the Slams.
 
But seemingly paradoxically, some recent data show that net play has been less frequent at Wimbledon than at Australian Open, and not much more frequent than at U.S. Open. Here are values, again from the last four rounds of recent Slams, giving total of net approaches per total points played:
 

--Australian Open 06-09, 0.301
--Wimbledon 06-08, 0.265
--U.S. Open 06-08, 0.253
--French Open 06-09, 0.229
 

Stepanek over Ferrer (judgment contradicts seeded order and Sc values here)
Del Potro over Stepanek
Davydenko over Berdych (Nicolay leads by 8-0 in past head-to-heads)
Roddick over Davydenko
Roddick over Del Potro
 

Safin over Wawrinka
Murray over Safin
Gonzalez over Simon (contradicting the Sc)
Murray over Gonzalez
 

Cilic over Haas (Sc rules, closely)
Cilic over Blake (Sc rules again)
Djokovic over Fish
Djokovic over Cilic (where the margin is closer than Sc shows)
 

Tsonga over Karlovic
Verdasco over Tsonga (won head-to-head in Australia 09)
Federer over Soderling (repeats Garros final)
Federer over Verdasco