LONDON — On Oct. 11, 1940, at the height of the Blitz, the All England Lawn Tennis Club was struck by German bombs, with one explosive tearing through the roof of Wimbledon's Centre Court and destroying 1,200 seats. Five bombs hit the property that night, and it would take nine years before the club could fully repair its main court, though The Championships would restart in 1946.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club was founded in 1868 at Worple Road, where the first Championships were held in 1877 before the event moved to its current Church Road site in 1922. The new Centre Court opened with a capacity of 14,000 spectators, where Gerald Patterson became the first champion after reading the Rudyard Kipling poem carved above its entrance — "If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same." Bobby Riggs was the last champion before World War II in 1939, less than two months before war erupted in September 1939. After the Royal Air Force prevailed in the Battle of Britain, the German bombing campaign the British press called the Blitz began on Sept. 7, 1940, with London systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 of the following 57 days and nights.
During the war the club was repurposed for the war effort. John Barrett, author of Wimbledon: The Official History said, "One of the car parks was ploughed up to grow vegetables. Another housed pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits in temporary wooden homes, while the main concourse echoed to the marching feet of detachments of the London Welsh and London Irish regiments." Some buildings were used by fire, ambulance and first-aid services. The borough of Wimbledon was often targeted because it was home to two factories important to the war effort. On Oct. 11, two bombs fell on the golf course at Wimbledon Park, one landed in Church Road at the north-east entrance, one demolished the club's tool house and one fell on Centre Court.
The courts were maintained throughout the war. In June 1945, barely a month after the end of World War II, a tournament featuring players from the armed services was held before 5,000 spectators. The Championships resumed in 1946 when Centre Court was repaired, with Frenchman Yvon Petra winning the first post-war title as the club's board managed rationing challenges. A 1979 renovation added 1,000 seats to Centre Court, while the biggest transformation came in the 2000s with a retractable roof unveiled in April 2009 to end rain delays. Plans to expand Wimbledon to allow the qualifying event to be held on-site were approved in 2024.