The 1973 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament was scheduled to be held from Monday 25 June until Saturday 7 July 1973 but rain on the final Friday meant that the women's singles final was postponed until Saturday and the mixed doubles final was rescheduled to Sunday 8 July. It was the 87th staging of the Wimbledon Championships, and the third Grand Slam tennis event of 1973. Jan Kodeà ¡ and Billie Jean King won the singles titles. King became the first player in the open era to claim the triple crown, the second time in her career she won all three titles open to women players. Her three victories necessitated playing six matches on the final weekend of the tournament: The singles final, the doubles semi-final and final and the mixed doubles quarter-final, semi-final and final, which was played on the extended Sunday schedule.
In May 1973 Nikola PiliÃÂ, Yugoslavia's number one tennis player, was suspended by his national lawn tennis association, the Yugoslav Tennis Association, which claimed he had refused to play in a Davis Cup tie for his country against New Zealand earlier that month. The initial suspension of nine months, supported by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), later was reduced by the ILTF to one month, which meant that PiliÃÂ would not be permitted to play at Wimbledon. The recently formed men's players union, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), stated that none should compete if PiliÃÂ were not allowed to compete. As a result, 81 of the top players, including reigning champion Stan Smith, boycotted Wimbledon in 1973 to protest the suspension of Nikola PiliÃÂ. Twelve of the 16 men's seeds had withdrawn. This resulted in a large number of qualifiers and lucky losers.
Three ATP players, Ilie NÃÂstase, Roger Taylor and Ray Keldie, defied the boycott and were fined by the ATP's disciplinary committee. NÃÂstase unsuccessfully appealed the fine as he insisted that as a serving captain, he was under orders from the Romanian army and government to compete. Some contemporary press speculation and later biographies have suggested NÃÂstase contrived to lose his fourth round match as he supported the ATP boycott, but to have lost any earlier to a considerably less able player would have been too obvious. NÃÂstase never has commented on this speculation. Despite the boycott, the attendance of 300,172 was the second highest in the championships' history to that date.
The total prize money for 1973 championships was ã52,400. The winner of the men's title earned ã5,000 while the women's singles champion earned ã3,000.
<sub>* per team</sub>
Jan Kodeà ¡ defeated Alex Metreveli, 6âÂÂ1, 9âÂÂ8<sup>(7âÂÂ5)</sup>, 6âÂÂ3
Billie Jean King defeated Chris Evert, 6âÂÂ0, 7âÂÂ5
Jimmy Connors / Ilie NÃÂstase defeated John Cooper / Neale Fraser, 3âÂÂ6, 6âÂÂ3, 6âÂÂ4, 8âÂÂ9<sup>(3âÂÂ7)</sup>, 6âÂÂ1
Rosemary Casals / Billie Jean King defeated Françoise Dürr / Betty Stöve, 6âÂÂ1, 4âÂÂ6, 7âÂÂ5
Owen Davidson / Billie Jean King defeated Raúl RamÃÂrez / Janet Newberry, 6âÂÂ3, 6âÂÂ2
Billy Martin defeated Colin Dowdeswell, 6âÂÂ2, 6âÂÂ4
Ann Kiyomura defeated Martina Navrátilová, 6âÂÂ4, 7âÂÂ5
The original seeding list before the boycott was: