The 2016 Championships burst into life on Monday and a full day’s play around the grounds threw up some interesting storylines and statistics.
The biggest of those has to be British world No.772 Marcus Willis’ fairytale first round victory over Ricardas Berankis to set up a dream date with seven-time champion Roger Federer.
The Berkshire boy’s wild on-court celebrations were truly something to behold and even world No.2 Andy Murray hit Twitter to react to the result – Willis’ seventh victory after fighting through pre-qualifying and qualifying on his way to the All England Club.
Marcus Willis how good is that!
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) June 27, 2016
On a day that also saw wins for defending champion Novak Djokovic, Kei Nishikori, Garbine Muguruza and Angelique Kerber, it was Venus Williams who featured in some of the more significant numbers that emerged from the opening day’s play.
- Venus made her 19th Wimbledon singles appearance reaching joint 8th position in the all-time list for Ladies' singles participants
- Venus has moved to outright 4th in the number of ladies singles matches played at Wimbledon. She will be joined by her sister Serena on 90 matches when she plays on Tuesday
- Sam Groth hit the day’s fastest serve at 142mph. Sabine Lisicki cracked the biggest serve in the ladies’ draw at 122mph
- Marin Cilic clocked his 1300th winner at Wimbledon, while Nicolas Mahut fired his 1000th
- World No.1 Djokovic, meanwhile, struck his 600th ace at the Championships
- The ladies’ draw lost seeds Ana Ivanovic (No.23) and Irina-Camelia Begu (No.25)
- The men's singles said goodbye to seeds Gael Monfils (No.17), Kevin Anderson (No.20) and Philipp Kohlschreiber (No.21)
- Britain celebrated two winners on Monday – Willis was joined in round two by Dan Evans who beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in four sets
