Wimbledon stands alone. Tennis’s most prestigious major plays by its own rules. It has a dress code all its own. It’s played on grass, the least common, most idiosyncratic surface. At a great cost to its balance sheets, it has virtually no signage, no naming rights and, until this year, no play on its middle Sunday.
Sometimes Wimbledon’s autonomy works to its benefit. The tournament canceled the 2020 edition because, alone among the majors, it had the good sense to purchase pandemic insurance. Sometimes Wimbledon’s autonomy works to its detriment: It was the last of the majors to pay men and women equal wages.