Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/117483
PHILIPPE CHATRIER AWARD A Sporting Icon This year���s recipient of the ITF���s prestigious Philippe Chatrier Award is the All England Club. Alexandra Willis looks at the Club, and Wimbledon���s, special contribution to tennis, and why they are so deserving of the honour. ���A fter the Olympics and the World Cup, Wimbledon is the third most iconic sporting event in the world.��� Thus spoke Sir Martin Sorrell, head of the world���s largest advertising and marketing services group, WPP. Sorrell is not the type to offer such praise lightly. One hundred and twenty-seven Championships since the very first men���s tournament in 1887, the All England Club has remained at the heart of the game of tennis, a sport that has grown from garden party pastime into multi-million dollar business. It is for this reason ��� the Club���s pedigree as a guardian of the game and yet force for the future ��� that the ITF has chosen the world���s most famous patch of grass as the recipient of the Philippe Chatrier Award in the organisation���s centenary year. 16 ITFWORLD SPRING 2013 ���I think it���s so appropriate, it���s absolutely perfect,��� believes Billie Jean King, one of Wimbledon���s most successful champions, herself a winner of the prestigious award in 2003. ���As a child growing up in the 50s, if you won Wimbledon, you were considered the world���s champion. So going to the All England Club for me was a lifetime dream since the first time I picked up a racket. I played my first match on Centre Court in 1961, and I haven���t missed a year since.���