2006 Wimbledon Championships

The 2006 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom. It was the 120th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and were held from 26 June to 9 July 2006. It was the third Grand Slam tennis event of the year.

Roger Federer won his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title, defeating Rafael Nadal in what was to be the first of three consecutive Wimbledon finals played between the pair. Venus Williams was unsuccessful in her title defence, losing in the third round against Jelena JankoviÃÂ. AmÃÂ©lie Mauresmo won her second Grand Slam title, and first and only Wimbledon title, defeating Justine Henin-Hardenne in the final in three sets. Mauresmo thus became the first Frenchwoman since 1925 to win the Wimbledon title. It was Henin-Hardenne's second of three Grand Slam final defeats of 2006, having lost the 2006 Australian Open final to Mauresmo earlier in the year; on that occasion, Henin-Hardenne retired due to a stomach virus.

Notable stories

American performance and Serbian breakthrough

For the first time since 1911, no American player reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, and for the first time since the 1976 Australian Open, no American player reached a Grand Slam quarter-final. Shenay Perry was the only American player to reach the fourth round; she was defeated 6Ã¢ÂÂ2, 6Ã¢ÂÂ0 by Elena Dementieva after losing the last ten games of the match. Her defeat also meant that no American woman reached the Wimbledon final for the first time since 1998.

Venus Williams' third round defeat by Jelena JankoviÃÂ of Serbia (on its first Grand Slam appearance as a newly established independent nation from the former Serbia and Montenegro) caused the earliest exit by a defending women's champion at Wimbledon since Steffi Graf lost in the first round in 1994 and meant that neither of the Williams sisters (Serena Williams withdrew due to injury) would be represented in a Wimbledon final for the first time since 1999. These championships were also the first to feature three Serbian players in the fourth round of any Grand Slam tournament: along with JankoviÃÂ, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic also reached the fourth round, the former losing to AmÃÂ©lie Mauresmo and the latter losing to Mario AnÃÂiÃÂ.

Li Na's run to the quarter-finals

China's Li Na became the first player from her country to ever be seeded or reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament. She upset the recent French Open finalist Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round and followed it up with a win over World No. 10 Nicole VaidiÃÂ¡ovÃÂ¡ in the fourth round, before losing her quarter-final to second seed Kim Clijsters. Li would not reach another Grand Slam quarter-final until the 2009 US Open, where again she was defeated by Clijsters.

Streaker incident

Midway during the ladies' quarter-final match between Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva, a streaker ran onto the Centre Court and interrupted the match, before ultimately being arrested and brought into custody by Wimbledon security guards. The streaker was later revealed to be Dutch DJ Sander Lantinga, who carried out the stunt as part of the Dutch television show Try Before You Die.

Point and prize money distribution

Point distribution

Below are the tables with the point distribution for each discipline of the tournament.

Senior points

Prize distribution

The total prize money for 2006 championships was ÃÂ£10,378,710. The winner of the men's title earned ÃÂ£655,000 while the women's singles champion earned ÃÂ£625,000.

* per team