Arthur Wentworth Gore

The covered court singles matches at the 1908 Olympic Games began at the Queen’s Club immediately after the English Championships had been held on the same courts. Regrettably, the Olympic tournament drew a poor entry and Wentworth Gore had had to play on two singles matches to add an Olympic gold medal to the English title he had won the previous week. In the first match, Gore came from behind to beat Josiah Ritchie, who later in the summer won the Olympic outdoor title, and in the final the 40-year-old Gore was relieved to beat George Caridia in straight sets after his five set opening match.

With Roper Barrett as his partner, Gore won a second Olympic gold in the indoor’s men doubles thereby confirming their position as one of the leading doubles pairings of the day. They reached the Wimbledon All-Comers in 1899 and 1908 before winning the Challenge Round in 1909 when they also won the British covered courts title. But possible their greatest victory came on the only occasional they played together in the Davis Cup. In the 1907 Challenge round, Gore and Barrett lost the first two sets to the Australasian pair, Norman Brookes and Tony Wilding, but after squaring the match they took the final set 13-11.

In 1900, Gore beat the great Laurie Doherty at Dublin, Beckenham and Wimbledon and was honored with the captaincy of Britain’s first Davis Cup team. The following year he won the first of his three Wimbledon singles titles. Despite his many successes, it is really the longevity of his career that places Wentworth Gore among the lawn tennis immortals. He played at every Wimbledon from 1888 to 1927, a remarkable span of 39 years; he is the oldest winner of the Wimbledon singles (aged 41 in 1909) and he also holds the record of being the oldest Wimbledon singles finalist (aged 44 in 1912). Wentworth Gore learned his tennis on the sand courts of Brittany and although many sources indicate that he was educated at Harrow this is incorrect and he was, in fact, educated abroad.