On the surface, it is a colourful rectangle of 100 per cent cotton, measuring 70 x 133cm, weighing 500g and fully machine washable – but everything about this quality weave of finest absorbent yarns screams ‘iconic’.
Yes, it is the official Championships towel, used by the players to mop the competitive juice from their brows and treasured by fans who last year bought 16,000 of the men’s purple and green version and 9,000 of the ladies’ one, in turquoise and pink, making them the top-selling items in the Wimbledon Shop.
The towel operation is orchestrated with incredible precision by the court attendants, directed by manager George Spring. This year 6,000 Championships towels arrived on site for the tournament. The 2015 men’s towel remains the classic design in club colours with cream lettering; the ladies’ version is fuchsia pink and green. At 8.30am, up to 400 towels are delivered to the court attendants’ headquarters and the previous day’s ‘dirties’ handed back to be laundered.
Each player involved in a Championships match receives two towels. They walk on court to find one hanging over the back of their chair and another folded on the seat. “Attention to detail is important at Wimbledon, so we give lessons to the court attendants on how to neatly fold a towel and hang it over the chair,” says Spring. “We will then take photos of the prepared chairs on each court to check it’s been done properly.” The towel is one of the iconic finishing touches on the set-piece stage that is a fully-dressed Championships court.
If a player wants extra towels, they have to ask the chair umpire, who rings the referee’s office, who passes the request back to court attendant HQ. Rafael Nadal can genuinely use 10 in a match; the Williams sisters, too, are notable for their towel requests.
At the end of the match, the players are expected to leave the towels behind to be laundered. Court attendants politely ask for them, but enjoy only 20 per cent success in the reclaim procedure. So coveted have they become as mementos that the vast majority leave the court casually slung around the neck of a player or scrumpled up inside their zipped bag. Or they get triumphantly thrown into the crowd along with sweaty wristbands.
“The towels are so revered we get very few back,” confirms the team. Current status stands at 564 returned from 2,123 sent out for men’s matches and 456 reclaimed from the 2,016 issued to the ladies. Of course, it is hugely complimentary – and subtle player-endorsed marketing – to think that Championships towels adorn bathrooms and poolside sunbeds all around the world.
To help stem the flow of the disappearing items, however, players in this year’s Junior and Invitation draws are issued with one Championships towel and one plain white towel per match. White towels are in any case provided in the dressing rooms and in the practice facilities and a mountain of them – 26,000 to be accurate – are laundered during the tournament.
Another towel has also proved in vogue in a tournament that included the hottest day since 1976: the iced towel. Along with the ice baths, chilled white towels have proved increasingly popular and are prepared in small batches according to player specifications. Andy Murray, for example, asked for two wet, iced towels for his semi-final against cool-as-a-cucumber Federer. Whereas a player’s physio used to prepare the changeover refresher, Court Attendant HQ now boasts a large white chest freezer of white towels taped up with ice – and so far this sultry Championships has made up more than 50.
